


A Study in Cylons

by Anarfea



Series: Scarlet and Chrome [2]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Battlestar Galactica Fusion, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Multi, Mutual Pining, Pre-Slash, Space Opera
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-08-22 07:50:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8278367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarfea/pseuds/Anarfea
Summary: Commander Gregory Lestrade and President Mycroft Holmes assemble the fleet and begin their search for the legendary thirteenth colony, Earth. But they can’t seem to shake the cylons. The fleet is attacked no matter where they jump, and Galactica’s Viper pilots, lead by Captain John ‘Doc’ Watson and Lieutenant Sally ‘Copperhead’ Donovan, are growing weary. Sherlock Holmes, Galactica’s unofficial science officer, is tasked with finding out how the cylons are tracking the fleet before time runs out. But first, he needs to find a cylon to study.





	1. Episode 1: Ragnar

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is actually the 2nd part of a series. I recommend reading the first fic, The Fall, which is based on the BSG Miniseries, first.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A hostage situation breaks out aboard The Baker when a disturbed passenger attempts to hijack the ship. Sally ‘Copperhead’ Donovan goes on a recon mission and discovers cylons closing in on the fleet. Galactica fights so the civilians can flee.

Ragnar Anchorage: Three Days After The Fall

 

“Now look, Mr. Wiggins,” Martha Hudson’s voice was strained, but steady. “Why don’t you put the gun down, and let Captain Chatterjee escort you to sickbay.”

The young man shook his head, dirty blond bangs falling into his wild, red rimmed eyes. His face was covered in a sheen of sweat, and he had one arm wrapped tightly around a pale and flustered Mrs. Turner, and the other shakily gripping a handgun, which he intermittently pointed at her temple and at the security guards assembled behind Mrs. Hudson and Captain Chatterjee. A small crowd of crew members had formed on the bridge of the Baker. Mrs. Hudson did her best to keep her face calm, though her heart was palpitating madly. Why she’d decided to play starlines at her time of life...

Wiggins’s finger twitched perilously on the trigger, and he turned the pistol toward her. Mrs. Hudson stared down the Stallion’s four barrels; she’d been in this position before. Wiggins was almost certainly going through morpha withdrawal. She was annoyed with herself for not having seen it sooner, but there had been other, more pressing concerns to deal with over the last two days, like tending to a passenger who was suffering from heart palpitations, arguing with the bureaucrats on Colonial One to make sure they received their share of foodstuffs and tylium, and finding space for the refugees that had been transferred aboard since the ships had assembled at Ragnar Anchorage. The Baker’s passenger manifest had swelled to more than a thousand; she could comfortably house seven hundred.

“People call me The Wig.”

Mrs. Hudson flashed her most disarming smile. “Okay, Mr. Wig.”

He frowned. “Or Wiggy.”

I can see why, she thought, wryly.

“I’m not going to jail.”

“No one is taking you to jail, Wiggy.”  Though, if memory served, there was a prison ship in their midst, the Astral Queen. It might not be a bad idea to inquire about relocating him once he’d been subdued.

“Frakking right, you’re not.”

“If you put the gun down now, we’ll take you to sickbay, give you a sedative, and forget this ever happened. I’ll inquire with Galactica’s ship doctor to see if they have any methadone.”

“I’m not a junkie,“ Wiggins said, sniffing. “I have allergies.”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Hudson, resisting the urge to roll her eyes.

Wiggins thrust the gun against Mrs. Turner’s temple again.

She let out a small squeak.

“I’m taking this lady to the life support console.”

To try to disable essential systems and kill them all, most likely. “Wiggy, that’s not going to happen.”

“Then I’ll shoot her.”

“Maybe,” Mrs. Hudson agreed.

Mrs. Turner began to sob.

“But you only have eight rounds in that clip, we’ll probably be able to take you down before you can fire more than three, and you’re shaking too badly to aim true every time.”

Wiggins licked a bead of sweat that had formed on his upper lip. His face was drawn and sallow. “You’d be doing these people a favor if you vented all the air into space.”

“I know these last few days have been hard for everyone,” Mrs. Hudson said steadily. “But we’re going to make it. You heard the Commander. We’re going to Earth. We’ll have a fresh start. A _clean_ start.” She leaned on the word for emphasis.

He smiled, a gleam in his bloodshot eyes. “There is no clean start. Right now, we’re one step away from beating each other with clubs like savages fighting over scraps of meat.”

Mrs. Hudson’s smile stiffened, but she kept it in place. The philosopher junkies were the worst kind.

“Maybe the cylons are God’s retribution for our many sins.”

And, he was a monotheist as well. It wasn’t very nice, perhaps, to stereotype, but they did tend to be such fanatics.

“What if God decided He made a mistake? What if He decided to give souls to another creature, like the cylons?”

The security guards behind Wiggins were beginning to edge forward.

“God didn’t create the cylons,” said Mrs. Hudson. “Humans did. And I’m pretty sure we didn’t include a soul in the programming.”

Wiggins began to giggle, as though this were all very funny. “The storm. You think it will protect you. The cylons will find you. And when they find you, it won’t take long to destroy you. They’ll be in and out before they get a headache.”

Mrs. Turner began to sniffle.

Mrs. Hudson frowned. “I don’t think cylons can get headaches. Not in those chrome domes of theirs.”

One of the security guards slowly lifted his hand to his belt, gently unfastening the leather snap over his taser.

“They can, Mrs. Hudson.” Wiggins grinned, eyes shining. “They do.” He inserted the Stallion into his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

Mrs. Turner screamed.

 

* * *

 

“Copperhead, Galactica,” Specialist Jeanette’s voice crackled badly in Sally's helmet headphones. “You should be approaching turn eight.”

“Copy that,” Sally said, banking her viper. She floated up into the straps of her five point harness. “I’m starting to lose wireless contact.“

There was a beep in her headset as Janette switched channels. “Do you remember the parameters of the mission?” John’s voice was staticky, but his tone was firm.

Sally adjusted her wireless, trying to sharpen the signal. The EM field above Ragnar was already messing with her communications. “Put my head outside the storm. Take some pretty pictures. Listen for wireless traffic. Come home.”

“No heroics,” John emphasized. “This is strictly recon. Look, listen, return.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, Doc. I lost my taste for heroics the second I engaged that first cylon raider.”

“Somehow I doubt that. Be careful out there, okay?”

“Roger,” Sally grunted and rolled her eyes. She surged forward into the storm, which crackled around her; green and purple clouds of electrically charged gas rolled over the wings of her viper. “Okay Galactica, I’ve reached the threshold. Do you read? Galactica?”

There was nothing in her ears but static.

She steered the Mark II towards the darkness at the edge of the storm.

“Frak,” she whispered.

The black blotch in front of her wasn’t space. It was what had to be a pair of cylon base ships, though they were completely different from the old-style, flying-saucer-type vessels she’d seen in the battle films in war college. They were wicked looking, ugly things, with six long, pointed arms, like a pair of caltrops nested in each other. Formations of raiders dotted the sky around them, vicious, crescent shaped flying wings with a grinning, steel skull at their center where the pilot should be. Each raider’s eye slit had a red beam which crept from side to side as they scanned for her. She kept her Viper under the cover of the storm, skirting the edge of the cylon fleet to snap photos with her surveillance package. The base ships were big enough that they blocked the gleaming light of the stars behind them. With their pointed arms, they almost looked almost like stars themselves. Basestars. The cylons had evolved.

 

* * *

 

“How the hell did they find us?” Dimmock demanded, pointing accusingly at Sherlock.

A few of the specialists in the CIC glanced up from their monitors.

“I thought you said it was impossible for the cylons to follow us through a hyperlight jump,” the XO continued.

Sherlock folded his arms across his chest. He was still wearing his coat; the black wool stood out in the sea of navy blue fleet uniforms. John found it strange to have a civilian on the bridge, but Lestrade seemed happy enough to let Sherlock serve as an unofficial science officer, as Galactica’s official one had been transferred after the ship had been turned into a coast guard vessel. Sherlock had become a fixture in the CIC, where John was currently strategizing with the Commander, the XO, and Lieutenant Carmichael, the ship’s Tactical Officer.

“I said it was _theoretically_ impossible,” Sherlock grumbled. “And I still don’t believe that theory has been disproven.”

“What do you call _that_.” Dimmock poked at the recon photographs Copperhead had taken, which were spread out over the information management table. The fixture dominated Command and Control station. In war college, photos had been streamed over a wireless network and projected on every console. There was none of that in Galactica’s antique bridge; the photographs were printed on films and laid out over a light table for the command officers to review.

Sherlock glanced at the images. “Looks like two base ships, or ‘basestars,’ as Copperhead has colorfully named them, ten fighter squadrons, and two recon drone attachments patrolling the area.”

Dimmock went white with rage. “This is not the time to be flip, Mr. Holmes.”

“Neither is it time to catastrophize ahead of the facts,” Sherlock retorted, steel in his voice. “The cylons might have deduced Galactica had no ship-to-ship missiles since you didn’t utilize them in the last battle. They may have reasoned we would come to Ragnar because it’s a munitions depot, in a defensible position, within easy jump distance from Caprica. They may not anticipate a jump to random, distant location.”

“That’s a hell of an assumption,” snapped Dimmock.

“None of this matters,” interjected Lestrade.

Sherlock and Dimmock fell silent.

“Regardless of how they found us, they’ve got us. And regardless of whether or not they’re able to follow us, we don’t have much choice but to get the hell away from this rock. I don’t want to be besieged by beings that don’t need food or water.” Lestrade traced the grids of raiders clustered around the basestars in the picture. “I’d rather not go out there and try to fight them, either. Can we plot a jump from inside the storm?”

Sherlock grimaced. “The electromagnetic interference would make it all but impossible to get an accurate FTL fix. Statistically, most of space is empty. But if we miscalculate, there is a possibility we could end up inside a black hole or an asteroid field.”

“I don't think we should attempt to jump until we’ve cleared the storm threshold, sir,” said Lieutenant Carmichael.

“We’ll have to be quick about it,” John added. “They’ll launch everything they have, first glimpse they get.” He was not relishing the thought of engaging ten squadrons of raiders. They had _one_ reliable squadron of Mark IIs. If they could neutralize the jamming weapons and utilize the Mark III complement, they theoretically had four, but he knew Lestrade wouldn’t risk launching the Mark IIIs to get shot like fish in a barrel unless the jammers were countered. So, he’d have to assume they’d be one squadron against ten. Which wasn’t quite as hopeless as the numbers alone made it sound; the AI controlling the basestar’s raiders was no match for a human pilot one on one. Unfortunately, they somewhat compensated for their shitty aim with their sheer volume of lead. The raiders had four wing-mounted KEWs; the two larger cannons fired heavier, explosive rounds, and the two smaller ones fired slugs. They weren’t as nimble as a Viper, but they were fast, and they _swarmed_ , and didn’t care too much about getting in one another’s line of fire.

Lestrade nodded. “Then we won’t give them any tempting targets. We’ll pull Galactica out five clicks. Just enough to get a fix. The civilians will come out behind us, cross the threshold, make the jump, while we hold off the cylons. Once all the ships are safely away, every fighter is to make an immediate combat landing. We won’t have much time.”

“I’ll scramble the air wing,” John said. He turned on his heel and headed towards the briefing room.

“Doc,” Lestrade’s tone was emphatic. “I want all my pilots to come home. Do you understand?”

John lifted his chin. “Yes, sir, I do.”

“Where are we going, Commander?” Carmichael asked.

“Pick a random system, Lieutenant. At the edge of our FTL range. And plot the jump by yourself.”

 

* * *

 

 

“What are the reports?” Mycroft asked. He resisted the urge to slump into his chair, trying to maintain some dignity, knowing what a disheveled aspect he must present. His shirt and suit were rumpled from having slept in them and the chair the night before. At some point, he would need to find some kind of living quarters, preferably with something approximating a bed. In the meantime, he essentially lived in the commandeered first class cabin of Colonial One, which he’d turned into an operations center. Anthea set a stack of printed messages onto the makeshift desk--a piece of plywood set across two of the empty chairs.

“The count has dropped by six hundred and eighteen.”

Mycroft stood, his back protesting, and walked to the whiteboard they had tacked to the wall separating the cabin from the cockpit. He erased the last three digits of the number 49,935, and re-wrote 49,317. “So many? We revised down by nearly three hundred last time.”

Anthea brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. Her curls were frizzy, and dark circles surrounded her eyes. “That was mostly because the first census was hastily taken and inaccurate, though a few passengers injured in the initial attacks died of wounds. The new decreases are mostly due to actual deaths, I’m afraid. The biggest loss was the Pryxis. The cylons destroyed it during the evacuation from Ragnar. Six hundred and four passengers. There were a few more ships correcting numbers, two new fatalities from previous injuries. Also, there was a suicide on the Chiron.”

Mycroft’s eyebrows pushed towards his hairline. “I think you’re mistaken, Anthea. The suicide was reported on the Baker.” He had specifically noted the ship’s name and hull number: 221B. It could be a coincidence that that particular ship had been one of the few dozen to survive the cylon attacks, but Mycroft had found the universe was rarely so lazy.

“Would that I were, sir. This is a different suicide. A Jennifer Wilson. She was an EMT who’d been assisting with the carrier’s wounded. They assisted us in rescue operations and had quite a few on board. Apparently, she administered a lethal dose of morpha to herself. They don’t believe it was an accident.”

Mycroft sighed. “I suppose we were bound to have more than one. It’s a stressful time.”

“Indeed. Also, the Chiron is requesting a medic to replace Miss Wilson.”

Medical personnel were precious. Too precious to risk losing along with a shuttle if there was another attack. “Tell them we’ll send someone once we’re confident we’ve evaded the cylons.”

* * *

 

“Okay everyone, good work,” John said, patting Hot Dog across the shoulders. The Viper pilots were beginning to emerge from the elevators that connected the upper deck landing bays with the lower hanger deck. Joker teetered as he adjusted to Galactica’s artificial gravity and kissed the ground. Molly cringed and mentioned something about knowing too much about what was on that floor.

John looked at the faces in front of him. Some of them looked bleary with combat fatigue, others were bright eyed with the high of victory. “Everyone came home,” he said. “You did what I asked you to.”

“We lost the Pryxis,” Copperhead grumbled, pulling her helmet off. She’d arranged her hair in cornrow braids close to her scalp.

“I know,” John said. “And that’s on us. Yes, we were outnumbered ten to one and in a shit tactical position. But the civvies are relying on us to protect them from those raiders. Your job is to draw the fire away from them and cover your assigned vessel. Don’t go chasing after kills. This isn’t about score keeping.”

The comm squealed, and everyone looked up. “This is the XO,” Dimmock announced. “Set condition two throughout the ship.”

Everyone on deck visibly relaxed.

“Okay, that’s our cue, guys.” John pointed at his pilots. “I want alert Vipers and CAP pilots on three hour rotations. And unless you’re in the tubes or on patrol, you’re in your rack. Understood?”

“Roger,” they chorused. A few were already yawning when they filed towards the flight crew quarters. John himself walked past them, a little wistfully, and climbed into the cable car that transported personnel from the flight deck to CIC.

He was making his way to the bridge when he ran into Sherlock. “Aren’t you going the wrong way?” he asked.

Sherlock frowned. “We’re at condition two, now. I’ve been relieved.”

“Yes, I’m aware. Which is why I expected you’d be getting rack time. I heard you sweet talked Chief Hooper into giving you a bunk down in the duty lockers with the knuckledraggers.”

“Yes, I’m kipping in a sardine tin with seven of them.”

John chuckled. He’d gotten used to being crammed into shared quarters with only a shelf above his rack and a narrow metal locker to keep all his meager worldly possessions in (which didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate the small but private room he’d been assigned to as CAG), but he was sure it must be a shock for a civilian, particularly one as well off as the Holmes brothers seemed to be. “Welcome to military life.”

Sherlock shrugged. “It’s still better than being stuck in a starliner cabin with my brother. Lestrade has granted me access to Galactica’s laboratory, so I really can’t complain. I suspect I’ll be spending most of my time there or in the Command and Control station.”

John paused, realizing that Sherlock had been at the CIC every time he’d gone down there in the past three days. “Have you left the bridge since we arrived at Ragnar?”

Sherlock tilted his head and gave him a look that said he thought John was being particularly slow. “I attended the funerals earlier this morning. As did you.”

“That’s not what I meant. You’ve had, what, twelve hours of sleep in the last eighty?”

“Ten in eighty-four.”

John goggled at him.

Sherlock’s brows knit for a moment, then he waved his long, slender fingers dismissively. “There’s a war on, or so I’ve been told. Right now, I’m running an analysis to calculate which systems within our FTL radius are most likely to have natural resources. The preliminary estimates my brother has given me for the Fleet’s supply needs are frankly alarming. Of course, Mycroft is probably assuming everyone eats as much as he does, so I figure I can safely round his numbers down by at least thirty percent.”

It had occurred to John that they’d eventually need to find more food. Galactica was modestly provisioned, with just enough supplies to get her through the museum conversion. But he hadn’t given any thought to how they would go about finding it. “Right. Well, I’ll let you get to that.”

An alarm blared in the speakers overhead. “Action stations, action stations,” said Lieutenant Carmichael’s staticky voice. “Set condition one throughout the ship. We have multiple enemy contacts.”

John hesitated a split second while deciding if he should head back to the flight deck or continue to CIC, and decided the bridge was closer. Sherlock ran with him, his fancy dress shoes almost noiseless in comparison with John’s heavy flight suit boots.

“What have we got?” John asked as soon as they reached the CIC. Men and women surveyed screens and printed readouts with tense, wan faces as alarms flashed above them.

“Cylons,” Sherlock hissed behind him, still breathless from their sprint. “The same configuration as before.” He pointed to the DRADIS console, where John saw the two square blips indicating the basestars, which were so deceptively innocuous and unlike the brutish, angular things in Copperhead’s recon photos.

“They’re on an intercept course, Commander,” Lieutenant Carmichael said, eyes still on the concentric green rings of her tactical plot. “Weapon’s range, two minutes.”

“What’s our plan?” Dimmock asked.

“We run,” Lestrade answered. “We can’t go toe to toe with those base ships. Launch the alert Vipers to cover us. And order all ships to begin emergency jump prep.”

“Sir, they’re clearly tracking us,” Dimmock protested.

“Then we assume they’ll follow. But it took us two hours for them to find us last time, and we’ll use that time to come up with something better.”

“Alert Vipers have launched,” said Jeanette, hand on her headset.

“Tell them to engage raiders only,” said Lestrade. “Leave the base ships to us.”

John walked over to Jeanette and stood behind her. “Can you patch me through on speaker?”

She nodded, adjusting the dials on her console. “You’re on line one.”

“Okay people, stay focused,” John told the air wing. “We’re covering the civvies until their FTLs are spooled. Razzle dazzle; don’t let them use their targeting computers. Do not engage those basestars and do not pursue raiders. Be careful out there.”

“Start sending the coordinates to the fleet,” Lestrade told Carmichael. “And change the encryption.” He turned to Sherlock, who was frowning at the DRADIS console. “Find out how they found us, Mr. Holmes.”

Sherlock blinked. “I--right.” He brought his palms up in front of his face and steepled them in front of his lips, which he bit.

“Weapons range, thirty seconds,” Carmichael announced.

“We need to jump before they close,” Lestrade said, watching the small dots indicating raiders creeping forward on the DRADIS console.

“A couple of the civilians are reporting problems with their FTL drives, sir,” Jeanette said, reading a printout. “Including Colonial One.”

Lestrade clenched his fist. “Recall the Vipers.”

“Combat landings, everyone!” John shouted so the speakers would pick up his voice. “You know the drill. Try not to put too many dents in Chief Hooper’s deck.”

“Fifteen seconds.” Carmichael said, voice tense.

“Where are we with jump prep?” Lestrade demanded.

“Ready as soon as the flight pods are retracted, sir,” said Carmichael.

“What about the civilians?” Lestrade asked.

Jeanette pressed a button and switched her com channel. “Colonial One still reporting trouble with her FTL, sir.”

“We are within weapons range,” Carmichael said, eyes glued to her display.

“Commence firing batteries alpha through echo,” said Lestrade.

Copperhead broke through over speaker. “Galactica, you’ve got incoming ordnance!” she snapped.

“Brace!” Dimmock shouted. “Copperhead, get your ass in here before the door closes on it!”

“And stay the frak out of Galactica’s firing solution!” John yelled, and reached for the light table as the impact shook the ship. His hand came down on top of Sherlock’s. Their eyes locked, briefly, and then John tucked his head down as a second explosion hit. All the staff in CIC staggered against their stations. An alarm sounded over the bridge.

“Watch the ammo hoists on the main guns,” Dimmock said, pointing at the damage control console. “You’ve got a red light down there!”

“We’ve got a hit on the starboard bow.” Jeanette said, switching comm lines again. “Away the damage control parties.”

Carmichael stared at the DRADIS console, sweat curling the hair at her temples. “Basestars’ raiders are closing on Colonial One.”

‘Flight pods are retracted, sir,” Jeannette said, and then, switching lines again, added, “Colonial One reports her FTL is functioning.”

“And they’re away,” Carmichael said, as Colonial One’s blip dropped off the console. She wiped her forehead.

“Jump!” said Lestrade.

The world shifted cruelly under John as space-time distorted, the walls of the CIC bending in his vision as though halfway below a water line. He felt a sudden pressure in his ears and a distant, high pitched sound pierced his ears, which faded as the room around him came back into focus. His stomach seemed determined to turn itself inside out. “Gods, I hate that part,” he muttered.

Sherlock slumped against the information management table. “It’s preferable to being nuked, one supposes.”

John grinned, and the pounding in his head lessened a little.

 


	2. Episode 2: Rhymes With ‘Swag’

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cylons have been chasing Galactica for days, and the crew is weary. John and Sally lock horns when John requests all pilots take stimulants. Mycroft’s theory about how the cylons are tracking them is so terrifying Lestrade swears them to secrecy.

Uncharted Space: 230 hours after the Battle of Ragnar Anchorage

 

Greg stood in the en suite head in his quarters, trying to shave the three day beard from his jawline. He tilted the door of his medicine cabinet so he could see through the open door into his quarters. Dimmock sat slumped in one of the leather chairs, but he wasn’t sleeping. Satisfied, Greg put the mirror back and returned to scraping shaving foam and stubble from his face.

“I want to try something new this time,” he said, cleaning up under his lip. His fingers were clumsy with fatigue. “Divide the fleet into six groups. And then jump--” The razor slipped in his fingers and he cut his chin. He grimaced. “And then jump two more times, and on the fourth jump, we rendezvous at a common set of coordinates.”

“That’s….” Dimmock paused, stumbling a moment with the calculation. “Twenty-four jumps to plot. Lots of the civilian flight crews don’t have relief. We’ve got people inputting FTL coordinates who haven’t had proper rest in more than a week. We’re going to start making mistakes. Split the fleet, and you might not get them back together.”

Dimmock was a solid second, but sometimes, he was a wet blanket; ten days of the cylons reappearing every few hours were taking their toll on him. Still, Greg had to admit the XO was probably right. It would be one thing to split up colonial battle groups, it was another to divide tourists. If the cylons were tracking one of the civilian ships, what would happen to that group if it were composed of nothing but cruise ships and salvage vessels? He finished shaving and washed his face with cold water, trying to splash off some of his sleepiness.

Greg pulled his jacket off the door handle and shrugged into it, buttoning it up the left side one handed while he pulled a comb through his hair. There were days he wished his uniform wasn’t edged with red braid of a Commander, and this was one of them.

 

* * *

 

John cornered Sally after the briefing, once the rest of the pilots and flight crew had cleared the ready room. He wasn’t sure how to bring the stim issue up without starting a confrontation. He licked his lips. “Hey, so, um, you see the memo from the XO?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I saw it. No way.”

This was exactly why he’d wanted to to talk to Sally alone. He’d known she was going to fight him on this, and he didn’t want the others to see it. “Everyone else--”

She cut him off. “I don’t fly with stims. They blunt your reflexes, slow your reaction time.”

“Come on, Sally, give me a break.”

“Why are we arguing about this?” she asked.

He threw up his arms. “I have no idea.”

“Neither do I.” She thrust her chin forward. “You’re the CAG--act like it.”

He raised his eyebrows. “What the frak is that supposed to mean?”

She folded her arms. “It means that you’re still trying to be everyone’s best friend. We’re not friends; you’re the CAG. ‘Be careful out there?’ Our job isn’t to be careful; it’s to shoot Cylons out of the frakking sky. ‘Good hunting’ is what you say. And now one of your idiot pilots is acting like a child and refusing to take her pills. So she either says ‘Yes, sir,’ and obeys a direct order, or you drag her ass down to sickbay and have Doc Stamford give her a shot.”

The thought made him grin, in spite of the tension between them. He smiled until his face hurt, until he felt his mouth would push his cheeks into his ears. “Boy, am I glad I’m not working for you.”

Copperhead held his gaze, not returning his smile, and said nothing.

John gained control of his face, and pulled the vial of stims out of the pocket of his flight suit. He opened the safety top, and thrust it at her. “Take the godsdamned pills, Lieutenant. That’s an order.”

Copperhead took the vial, shook two stims into the palm of her hand, and threw them into the back of her throat, swallowing without water. She grimaced, then moved to hand the vial back.

“Keep it,” he said. “Your orders are to take one every third rotation, until I say otherwise. Are we clear?”

She shoved the vial into her own pocket. “Crystal.”

“Crystal what?”

A ghost of a smile quirked across her face, but she suppressed it. “Crystal clear, sir.”

“You’re flying CAP with Crashdown for the next three hours,” he told her. “Good hunting.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sherlock lay on his back on top of of one of the stainless steel work surfaces in the laboratory with his head next to the wireless. He’d programmed the radio to switch channels every thirty seconds, and was rotating through all the unencrypted voice traffic in the fleet. Astral Queen’s crew were worried their prisoners might riot. Thera Sita was making a supply run to Triton. Aurora mentioned a young woman had gone missing.

He clutched the vial of stims he’d been given in his left hand, and dug the fingers of his right into the flesh above his left elbow over his rolled up his sleeve. Apparently, it hadn’t occurred to his brother to instruct Dr. Stamford not to give Sherlock any stimulants. Mycroft was slipping. In fairness, after nearly ten days alternating between conditions one and two with the cylons attacking every time the crew thought they might get a few hours of respite, he supposed they all were. He pushed the ball of his thumb against the cap of the bottle, then stopped. He wasn’t that desperate. Not yet.

Sherlock pulled another nicotine patch out of the open box on the counter next to him and tore open the packet. He stuck the patch to the exposed skin of his forearm, pressing it in place while listening to the Tylium ship talk a freighter through refuelling procedures. There had to be _something_ triggering the cylons re-appearances. He just--

The familiar click-whirl of the ship's automated door opening interrupted him, and he flicked his eyes towards the door.

John Watson stepped into the room. Sherlock had dimmed the lights in the lab, but even in semi darkness he could see the slump in his normally square shoulders.

“Commander Lestrade asks if you have any updates.”

“No.” As if he wouldn’t send word immediately if he had anything worth reporting.

“Right.” John glanced at Sherlock’s arm, as though seeing it for the first time. “What’s that on your--”

“Nicotine patch,” he interrupted. “Helps me think. It’s going to be impossible to keep up a smoking habit once the black market becomes the only source of cigarettes. Nicotine patches, on the other hand, you can get for free from sickbay. For the time being.” If Stamford were clever, he might skim a few boxes and hoard them to barter later; a lot of smokers in the fleet were probably contemplating the merits of quitting.

“Why three?” John asked.

“It’s a three patch problem,” he replied, eyes still focused on the ceiling.

John frowned at him. “You know, we have actual stims if you--”

Sherlock rattled the vial above his head. “As ever, Captain Watson, you see, but do not observe.”

“Then why don’t you--”

“Bad for brain work."  He popped the 'k' with his tongue. “Might perk you up a bit in the short term, but eventually you’ll start imagining you have bees in your teeth and pulling them out. It’s going to come back and bite Lestrade in the arse, you know, this business of jacking up the crew on amphetamines.”

John drew himself up, defensively. “It was _supposed_ to be a temporary stop-gap measure,” he said, a touch of accusation creeping into his voice.

Sherlock sat up, gripping the patches on his arm. “And this ship was _supposed_ to be a war museum. Am I to blame for that, as well?”

‘Sorry,” John said. “We’re all tired. It’s probably not fair to put so much on you. It’s just--”  
“The fate of humanity is in my hands; I’m aware.” He jerked his rolled sleeve down over his arm and fastened the cuff. “As much as I hate to admit this, I need to consult with my brother.”

“I’ll arrange a raptor to Colonial One.”

“Can you fly it?”

John raised his eyebrows, dropped his chin, and stared at him..

“No, sorry, you’re C.A.G, now, I’m sure you’re busy. I just…” he searched for something plausible, “...it’s sometimes easier for me to think when there’s someone to talk things through with out loud and--” the klaxons in his brain flashed an idiocy warning a split second after he heard the words tumbling from his mouth, “--I think better when you’re around.” Stupid. As if any moron couldn’t see the calf eyes John made at Donovan. Mycroft was right; he was telegraphing his fascination, and it wasn’t going to have any effect other than to make John uncomfortable around him.

To his immense surprise, John relaxed. “Oh. I thought.… Usually, when someone calls a Viper jockey a Raptor pilot, he means it as an insult.”

“Oh.” Obvious. Viper pilots were elite fighters; Raptors provided support in combat but otherwise transported personnel or cargo. “I understand. I play the violin.”

John blinked rapidly. “I can’t be sure, but I don’t think I’d follow even if I wasn’t frakked up on sleep deprivation and stims.”

“Viola jokes.”

John smiled and shook his head. “I still don’t understand.”

“Never mind.” He shrugged into his jacket and coat, looping his scarf around his neck. “Would you fly me? As a favor. If you have the time.”

“I doubt the Commander will clear it. I’ll get Bonesaw--er, Sarah, to fly you. She’s good. And I’ll escort you to the flight deck.”

Sherlock matched his stride to John’s as they walked through the corridor.

“It’s pronounced ‘cag,’ by the way.” John smirked. “Rhymes with ‘swag.’  And it stands for ‘Captain of the Air Group.’ You might want to keep that in mind if you don’t want people to think you’re a… violist.”

Sherlock grinned.

 

* * *

 

They passed through the memorial hall again on the way to the hangar. John was amazed how quickly he’d become inured to the display of grief. He supposed the suffering it represented was just on too large a scale for the mind to comprehend, so his had simply stopped registering it. Sherlock didn’t give the photo-lined corridors a second glance.

“I’m sorry,” said John. “I never asked if you--” he gestured to the walls.

Sherlock frowned.

“If you lost anyone. I mean, everyone did, but--” his tongue was furry in his mouth. Possibly a side-effect of the stims, or of Sherlock staring at him as though he were dissecting him.

“No.”

John blinked. “Your family--”

“There’s only Mycroft.”

“You didn’t have a…” he licked his lips. “Significant other?”

Sherlock flipped his collar up. “Not really my area.” John could have sworn there was a flush on his cheeks, but the dark wool obscured Sherlock’s face before he got a good look.

Right. He’d clearly misread what had happened in the CIC, then. Sherlock’s hand on his had been gravity, not interest. And seriously, Watson, there was a war on.

“What about friends?” he asked.

“I’m a high functioning sociopath, Captain Watson,” Sherlock snapped. “How many _friends_ do you imagine I had?”

 _Not many, I’d venture_. He held his tongue.

 

* * *

 

A haggard ensign intercepted Sherlock and John before they made it to the flight deck and informed them they were to report to Galactica’s War Room instead. The sight of Mycroft and Anthea standing at the table next to Lestrade suffused Sherlock with both surprise and pleasure. He was determined not to show either. Dark bags hung heavily under Mycroft’s red-rimmed eyes, and his shirt was seriously in need of ironing. Sherlock might have been pleased to see Mycroft showing signs of his mortality if he didn’t know he looked just as bad.

“Colonial One’s FTL is still malfunctioning intermittently,” explained Anthea. “The Commander has decided we should dock in the port hangar deck until it can be repaired.”

“We have to determine how they’re tracking us, and soon,” said Lestrade. “There are limits to human endurance. The crew can’t continue to hold the Cylons off much longer.”

“I’ve been listening to the chatter on the wireless,” said Sherlock. “People are dying or going missing.”

“We’re aware,” said Anthea, opening a notebook on the table. He noted that her skirt was wrinkled, and her stockings had a run below the knee. She’d changed from heels to flats. At least she’d had a pair. Sherlock, Mycroft, and Anthea had arrived to the Galactica with the clothes on their backs, plus two changes. And now that was all they had to wear for the rest of their lives, unless they managed to barter some. We’ve been keeping lists of the casualties,” Anthea continued.

“I think there is a connection,” said Sherlock, “Between these deaths and disappearances and the attacks.”

Mycroft crossed his arms and said nothing.

“What sort of connection?” Lestrade asked.

“They seem to precede them. Mycroft, you have access to more information than I do.” He couldn’t help letting his frustration at that enter his voice. “I need you to verify if, in fact, just before every attack, someone in the fleet was reported either dead or missing.”

“We’ve had hundreds of deaths,” protested Anthea. “And only twenty-nine attacks.”

“Not every death triggers an attack, clearly.”

“Why would people dying get the cylons to attack us?” asked John.

“I don’t know,” Sherlock said, tearing his fingers through his hair. “Perhaps there are cylon collaborators in the fleet. Perhaps they kill when they’ve been made.”

“You think there are cylons in the fleet?” Lestrade asked.

“Clearly not,” said Sherlock, “we’d have seen them. But I think there are people who may be working with the cylons. I’ve been operating on the assumption that Anderson was incompetent rather than malicious. But what if the cylons didn’t hack his CNP system as I imagined? What if he built a backdoor in for them?”

John’s stomach churned. “Why would anyone help the toasters--”

“People are irrational, John. They regularly do things not in their own self-interest for inexplicable, emotional reasons.”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow. “You think the fleet is littered with cylon agents who are transmitting our coordinates to the cylon fleet across hyperspace.”

“I thought you said it was impossible to send a message across hyperspace,” added John.

“We’ve clearly underestimated cylon technology. It’s clear that they have some way of sending communications. We’re picking systems at random. They can’t possibly be predicting our movements.”

“But many of these deaths are suicides,” Anthea protested. “It can’t be that cylon collaborators are murdering people they think are threats to them.”

Sherlock waved his hand dismissively. “It’s very easy to make a murder look like a suicide, especially the kinds of suicides we’ve had: morpha overdoses, people jettisoning themselves out of airlocks. And let’s not forget the accidents and disappearances.”

“The man on the Baker shot himself in the head in front of witnesses,” said Anthea. “There’s no question that wasn’t a suicide.”

Sherlock’s eyes widened at the mention of the Baker. Surely it couldn't be _the_ Baker.

He looked at Mycroft, but his brother's face was inscrutable.

“Maybe the cylon collaborators are killing themselves because they feel guilty,” John suggested. “I know I would.”

Sherlock paused a moment, steepling his fingers.

“If we have cylon collaborators in the fleet,” said Lestrade, “why aren’t they engaging in acts of sabotage? We haven’t seen them try to destroy the life support systems on a ship, for example.”

“We would have noticed something like that immediately,” said Sherlock. “With the small- scale disappearances and accidents, they’ve managed to do this twenty-nine times and we’re just starting to see a pattern.”

“It’s absurd to imagine twenty-nine people would be guilt stricken enough to kill themselves for aiding the cylons, still less that such an activity would provide their fleet with our whereabouts,” said Mycroft.

“Why not?” asked Sherlock. “We see cults and the like engage in acts of mass suicide.”

“So now there’s a cult of cylon collaborators.” His brother sneered.

“What’s your theory?” he demanded.

Mycroft pursed his lips and remained silent for so long Sherlock wondered if he’d fallen asleep. His brother had the uncanny ability to catch it in snatches while standing. “There are cylons who look like us,” he said, finally.

Sherlock rocked back on his heels.

John’s mouth fell open.

Lestrade scowled.

Anthea blinked tiredly.

“How--” Sherlock began.

“You’ve said it yourself; we’ve clearly underestimated their technological capabilities. If they intended to retaliate after the armistice, it would only make sense that they would bend all their efforts towards developing a cylon model capable of infiltrating human society.”

Sherlock folded his hands in front of his face. “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

“Precisely.”

“But that _is_ impossible,” said John.

“It’s not impossible,” said Sherlock. “In fact, it’s hardly a new idea. Remember the Zoe Project? It’s why the Colonial government prohibited the manufacture of robots that looked human.”

“It still doesn’t explain why the deaths would be correlated with the attacks,” said Anthea.

Sherlock pursed his lips. Neat as Mycroft’s theory was, it didn’t. There was still a piece missing. “Maybe when the cylons die they broadcast some kind of signal.”

“It would have to be incredibly long range,” said John.

Lestrade cleared his throat, and the room went silent. “Have any of you considered the implications of what is being said here?”

“Yes,” said Sherlock and Mycroft together.

Sherlock scowled at his brother.

“This conversation cannot leave this room,” said Lestrade. “I need proof that cylons that look human actually do exist. More importantly, I need a way to distinguish between cylons and humans. Otherwise, the Fleet is going to start tearing itself apart when people start accusing their neighbors of being cylons because they don’t brush their teeth in the morning.”

“Anthea and I will conduct our investigation with utmost discretion.”

“Anthea and you!” Sherlock spluttered.

“We have, as you mentioned, more information,” said Mycroft. “I will lead the investigation. You are welcome to assist.”

Lestrade cut Sherlock off before he could form a retort. “I need everyone to assist. And I need results quickly.”

“How can I help?” asked John.

“Photographs,” said Sherlock. He mentally re-walked the memorial hallway. He cursed himself for having deleted the details of most of the images. “I need photographs, all the photographs.” He closed his eyes. “Jennifer Wilson. You said she was an EMT. She must have had an ID badge.”

“I’ll look into it,” said Anthea.

“There’s no kind of centralized database we can run facial recognition against,” lamented Mycroft.

“Ask all the cruise ships to loan us their bouncers.”

“What?” asked Lestrade.

“The bars. Whomever checks IDs. They can help us identify potential suspects. Tell them we’re trying to help people locate their missing relatives, they’ll volunteer.”

“You think the cylons will have fake IDs?” John asked, bewildered.

“No,” Sherlock snapped. “They’ll have impeccable credentials. But they’ll look the same. Bouncers are better at recognizing when two faces simply look similar and when they’re actually the same individual.”

“You think they’ll all look alike?” said Lestrade.

“Not all, surely. They probably have several models. But everything the cylons manufacture is done on an economy of scale. There will be repeats. Doubles. We need to find them. I need photos of everyone who’s died or disappeared since the attacks. Start with that bloody memorial.”


	3. Episode 3: Lady in Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock uninstalls Anderson’s faulty navigation program from Galactica’s Vipers. Irene Adler, CIO of Belgravia Securities, comes aboard for a meeting with Lestrade. Sally informs them that Irene was on Caprica with Anderson the morning of The Fall.

Galactica War Room: Four Hours Later

 

“Well,” said Sherlock, sweeping into the War Room where John and Anthea were huddled over the latest cache of photos. “It took _ten days,_ since Lestrade still won’t let me network a single computer, but I think I was able to isolate the malicious code from Anderson’s CNP program and get a clean version installed on all the Mark IIIs. The cylons are going to have a nasty surprise the next time they attack.”

John wasn’t so sure. It would help them to double their number of fighters if they went on the offensive, but Lestrade seemed pretty adamant that they run rather than fight, and with all his jockeys exhausted as they were, John agreed with him. But it was still good to have the Mark IIIs operational, and he didn’t want to dismiss Sherlock’s achievement, so he stayed quiet.

Sherlock walked over to the table and stood next to John. “Where are we with the photographs?”

“‘Bill Wiggins’ was definitely a cylon,” said Anthea. She pointed to a photo on the table of a wild-eyed, sweat-sheened man training a gun on a hostage. “This is a still from the Baker’s surveillance footage. He committed suicide just before the first attack.” She tapped another image of the same man in what was clearly an ID badge photo, with slightly longer hair and wearing a twisted jute necklace. “This is ‘Leoban Conoy,’ the yoga instructor on the Chiron.”

“Is he in custody?” Sherlock asked hopefully.

“No, he airlocked himself before attack number eighteen.”

“Do we have the corpse from the Baker, at least?”

“Also airlocked. The Baker’s a cruise ship. It doesn’t have a morgue.”

“They could have put it in a freezer,” Sherlock muttered.

“The only freezers they have are in the kitchens.”

Sherlock tilted his head. “Problem?”

“If he’s a confirmed cylon, shouldn’t we release his picture to the fleet?” John interjected. “What if there are more copies?”

“At this point, it would probably do more harm than good. We’re still fighting the cylons every few hours. The last thing we need is a panic.”

“If the cylons know we’re on to them, they might stop the attacks,” John countered. “If anyone who kills themselves is outed as a cylon agent, they might stop so we don’t figure out what they all look like.” They were up to thirty-two attacks. His pilots were short-fused and bleary-eyed, and making mistakes. They hadn’t lost another civilian vessel, yet, but two vipers had been picked off by raiders.

“We also have to consider that some of the suicides may be murders staged to have us investigate the wrong people. And it’s frustrating how few photographs we have of the suicides.” She gestured towards the images on the war room table. “Only fifteen out of thirty two. And of those, only Wiggins is confirmed as having a double.” She sighed. “There are descriptions, of course. Apparently most of the people who have committed suicide or disappeared have been White women in their early thirties.”

“That hardly narrows it down. Do we have any police sketch artists?” Sherlock asked.

“One. He’s making the rounds discreetly, but it’s so difficult to coordinate transfers of personnel when we could be attacked at any time.”

“Seriously,” said John. “There’s this annoying woman on Olympic Carrier who keeps demanding an audience with the Commander. I’ve tried to explain to her that we can’t spare any Raptors for ferrying passengers about when they could be needed for combat. He’s agreed to see her, though; she says it’s an urgent matter of Fleet security. And she’s some kind of security expert, so I guess he’s taking her seriously.”

Anthea’s brow furrowed. “This is the first I’ve heard of this. No one’s contacted Colonial One. What’s her name?”

John sighed. “Sorry, ma’am, I can’t remember. I’ve been awake for twenty-six hours.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure if it’s important, the Commander will share his information.”

“Right. Well, since Sherlock’s here to help you, now, I think I need some rack time.”

She hummed, her head already in the photographs again.

“Good evening, morning, whatever time it is, Captain Watson,” muttered Sherlock, rearranging everything on the table as Anthea frowned. If he was tired, he didn’t show it. His curls were wild and flying out in every direction, and tense energy radiated from every extremity, but his eyes lacked the sheen of stims.

John envied his almost super-human endurance. “It’s 1800 hours,” he said, biting back a yawn, and turned from the room. The doors whirred closed behind him.

 

* * *

 

 

“Who’s the tramp in the red suit?” Copperhead asked. Her eyes darted down the hall to the woman who’d come from the Olympic Carrier. Her suit matched the soles of the black stilettos which made her legs seem to go on for ages. John suspected she was actually only average height, but the shoes, combined with her long, graceful neck and upswept dark hair, made her appear tall, even standing between the pair of colonial marines escorting her.

Sherlock, standing beside him, sniffed. “Resorting to name calling when you see a woman who’s more attractive than you advertises insecurity, Sally.”

“I was talking to John.”

John blinked, tearing his eyes from the hourglass curves emphasized by the woman’s tailored jacket. “She’s, uh, some kind of computer expert, I think?  She had a meeting with the Commander earlier.”

“Really, John?” Sally rolled her eyes. “I thought you had better taste than that.”

“I don’t think you can expect taste from a man with the nickname ‘Three Colonies Watson,’” said Sherlock.

The others had started calling him that years ago, when they’d discovered he’d had girlfriends on Caprica, Picon, and Tauron, simultaneously.

Sally snorted.  “It was the taste of those three women that was questionable.”

“I don’t know what kind of rumors the crew has been spreading,” said John, “but I’d like to state for the record that each of my girlfriends knew about the others, and none of them complained.”

“Racetrack said one of them dumped you because you bought her a dog toy and she didn’t have a dog.”

“That’s”--he’d been about to say it wasn’t true; it had been Janette who’d dumped him because he’d gotten her mixed up with a recent ex-girlfriend who’d had a dog, and he hadn’t dated her until years after the relationships that had earned him the nickname Three Colonies Watson had ended, but he realized that was only going to make him look like more of an asshole in front of Sherlock than he did already, so he shut up.

“The woman’s name is Irene Adler, and she’s CIO of Belgravia Securities,” said Sherlock, changing the subject.

John shot him a tight, grateful smile.

“I didn’t realize there was anyone in the Fleet who made it off Caprica,” said Sally.

“Bonesaw rescued six,” said John. “That’s all they could fit in the Raptor. They drew lots.” He was really glad it hadn’t been him organising that particular raffle. Sarah’s ECO, Helo, who had stayed behind to give another civilian his seat, apparently had had to shoot a desperate refugee who’d tried to climb onto the Raptor’s wing at takeoff.

“Donovan, why did you think she came from Caprica?” asked Sherlock. “Belgravia Securities is based in Boskirk.”

She scowled. “None of your business.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed. “I’m serious-- this is important. The safety of everyone on this ship depends on it.”

“I saw her, okay?” she huffed. “In Caprica City. The morning of The Fall.”

Sherlock’s eyes widened. “You’re certain?”

John felt his heart beating faster. At least this time, he wasn’t having any difficulty following Sherlock’s train of thought. Sherlock was right; everyone they’d rescued from Caprica’s surface was here, on Galactica. There was no way Irene could have transferred to the Olympic Carrier.

“Yeah.” Sally’s eyes darted between them. “She was, um, with Dr. Anderson, the scientist. As in, _with him_ with him.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Sherlock practically shouted.

Sally crossed her arms. “I thought she was dead, okay? Along with Dr. Anderson and the five billion other people on Caprica when the toasters nuked it. I didn’t see her until just now.”

“John,” Sherlock said, urgency entering his voice. “Who’s in charge of security on Galactica?”

“The Sergeant at Arms.”

“Alert them. And Lestrade.”

Sally’s eyes widened. “What the frak is going on?”

Sherlock paced furiously, fingers tucked under his chin, muttering, “we’ve got one we’ve got one we’ve got one,” while John discreetly contacted the bridge on his walkie.

“This is the XO,” answered Dimmock.

John wandered down the corridor to make sure he was out of earshot of the woman and her entourage. “We may have a possible security breach near the memorial hall.”

“Is this about the Adler woman?” Dimmock asked.

“Yes ….”

“The Commander has instructed us to keep an eye on her and keep her from leaving the ship. He doesn’t want to detain her at this time, but we have her under surveillance.”

“I think he might change his mind on that if he hears what Copperhead and Sherlock have to say,” said John.

“Roger. I’ll set up a meeting.”

Sherlock was rocking back and forth on his toes, thrumming with energy. “Well?”

“The Commander apparently thinks she’s a threat but has said hands off for now. He wants to meet.”

“Interesting,” said Sherlock. “I wonder what made him suspicious.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Thank you for taking the time to see me, Commander.” Irene Adler crossed Greg’s office in a few brief steps and extended her hand to him.

Greg stepped out from behind his desk and shook it out of reflex. Ms. Adler’s nails were polished the same shade as her suit. “You do realize I don’t have long, and we could be interrupted at any moment.”

She smiled. “I understand. I know I was rather--insistent on getting an interview, but my intelligence was urgent, and needed to be communicated to you directly. I’ve been trying to get an audience since Ragnar.”

“I’m aware. As I’m sure you’ve noticed,” he smiled wanly, “we’ve been busy.”

“Yes. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Do you know who I am?”

“I’m familiar with Belgravia Securities,” he answered.

She nodded. “Publicly, we’re best known for our work with the Defense Ministry. While it’s less well known, we assisted other government agencies including,” she pitched her voice lower, “the Department of Cylon Research.”

Had everyone heard of this mystery department except him?

She paused, narrowing her blue eyes, trying to asses the impact of her words. When he declined to volunteer anything, she continued, “I suspect Mycroft Holmes has informed you that he also worked for this agency.”

Greg did his best to maintain the relaxed, neutral face he wore when playing triad.

“You should know, Commander, that while he did work with us initially, Mr. Holmes went rogue near the end of his tenure.” She opened her briefcase and slid a sealed manila envelope across the table towards him. “We have evidence that suggests that he was in fact collaborating with several human-appearing cylons. He provided them with the resources to help them mass produce the infiltration capable models. We also believe that Mr. Holmes had advance warning about the attacks, and arranged for himself and his brother to be on board this ship during the first wave.”

Greg broke the seal with his thumb, removing the documents slowly and making a show of scrutinizing them to avoid Irene’s gaze. In truth, he understood little of the technical mumbo jumbo and would need to review them with Lieutenant Carmichael, later. But whether or not Irene was telling the truth, the fact that she had confirmed the existence of humanoid cylons was a cause for concern in itself.

“There were irregularities in the research at one of the sites he was overseeing. The Baskerville facility was supposed to be researching artificial intelligence for the purposes of countering cylon technology. However, the lead researcher, Dr. Stapleton, seems to have instead continued with Dr. Graystone’s attempts to re-create the consciousness of a specific human individual as an AI and house that AI in a humanoid robotic form.”

Greg’s eyes widened. “The Zoe Project?” Graystone had created the first fully sentient AI, modeled after the mind of his deceased daughter. His research had paved the way for the creation of the cylons. Greg found it difficult to believe that anyone would be so brazen as to try to engage in exactly the type of research that the laws prohibiting further development of AI were designed to prevent.

She nodded. “Similar, and launched for similar reasons. Stapleton seems to have colluded with Mr. Holmes to revive the consciousness of his sister Eurus, who drowned when they were children and was cryogenically frozen. We believe that his inability to do this at Baskerville led him to pursue an alternative solution.” She reached for the envelope. “May I?”

He nodded, and she shook it, removing a data stick from the bottom, and handed it to him.

“The files on this drive contain the login records showing who accessed the agency’s most sensitive files. It shows that over the past six months, Mycroft Holmes downloaded files containing intelligence gathered near the armistice line and transferred them to a mobile device without authorization. We suspect that he was meeting with a cylon or cylon agent and providing them with this intelligence, presumably in exchange for help furthering the research begun at Baskerville.”

Greg pressed his lips together. He would certainly need more time to review the files. But all the evidence suggested that either the President was a cylon, or a cylon collaborator, or, if Irene had fabricated the evidence, that she was. “And what about yourself, Ms. Adler?” Greg probed.

She arched an eyebrow.

“You arranged for your own passage on the Olympic Carrier, did you not?”

She smiled; he imagined she meant it to be reassuring, but he found something unpleasant about it. Her lips were a decidedly bloody shade of red. “A few days before the attacks, Dr. Philip Anderson, who, as I’m sure you are aware, was another consultant with the Defense Ministry, mentioned he was concerned that the CNP system that he designed for the Colonial Fleet might have a security vulnerability. He requested that Belgravia Securities investigate it discreetly.”

“You mean, he offered you inside information to help you win a bid on the contract to fix it instead of immediately reporting the vulnerability to Fleet Command.”

Her red smile widened. “I can’t get anything past you, can I, Commander? Yes, it’s true. I think Anderson thought we were exchanging professional favors. He wanted to have a solution by the time he admitted his error. He knew our firm would find one quickly--and that we’d thank him for the business. I, of course, given my connections with the Department of Cylon Research, and my suspicions about Mycroft Holmes, anticipated that the vulnerability might be exploited by a far graver adversary than the monotheist radicals which concerned Anderson. I immediately made an appointment to meet with Admiral Gregson to discuss my concerns. The packet I’ve given you now was originally prepared for him.”

He turned back to the first page of documents and saw that it was addressed to the Admiral--not that that didn't mean Ms. Adler hadn’t recently put it in a new envelope.

“If you check the flight plan for the Olympic Carrier, you’ll find our first stop was meant to be Picon.” Irene sighed, and the fatigue they’d all been feeling showed in her face for the first time. “Obviously we never reached our destination, and unfortunately, there’s no way that you can contact Admiral Gregson and ask him to corroborate my statement, now.”

Which was awfully convenient, Greg thought, but unfortunately, true. “What are you proposing I do?” he asked.

She glanced up at him, eyes widening. “I hardly know, Commander. I just felt it urgent that you have this information. Mycroft Holmes a traitor to his species, and a very dangerous man. I’m not sure whether you should denounce him publicly or eliminate him privately, but such a man can’t be allowed to continue as President of the Colonies, surely.”

He swallowed a sigh. Any way he looked at this situation, it looked ugly. Finally he said. “This is very grim news indeed. I’m glad you brought this to my attention, however much it disturbs me. I suspect I will have further questions for you later, but the possibility remains that we could be attacked at any moment, and I don’t think I can give this matter the attention it deserves until we have some distance between ourselves and the cylons.”

“I understand completely, Commander.”

“I’d appreciate it if you would remain on Galactica for the time being. This way, it will be easier for us to remain in contact if there is a need.”

“Of course.”

“I will see that you are provided with temporary quarters. I can’t promise they will be comfortable.”

“My own comfort is the least of my concerns.”

He glanced at her perfect, upswept hair and immaculate make-up and doubted it, but said nothing.

She rose in a fluid movement, running her hands over her suit to smooth it--and draw his eye to her curves. If she was wearing one of those little tops women wore under suits, it was low cut. He suspected she might not be. He rose with her, stiffer than he would have liked, and shook her hand again. She had a firm grip.

She smiled again, lips too red, teeth too white. “Thank you for your time, Commander.”

“Thank you for the information, Ms. Adler.”

“Anytime,” she said, and escorted herself out of his office.

Still standing, he picked up the phone on his desk and dialed Dimmock.

 


	4. Episode 4: Gross Negligence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lestrade won’t declare Irene Adler a cylon without proof, but accuses her of collaborating with the cylons to detain her. Sherlock attempts to craft a test which can identify cylons. An ominous device found in Irene’s bag sparks unease on Galactica.

“When are you going to take her into custody?” Sherlock demanded as soon as his marine escort had shut the door to Greg’s quarters. He strode across the room, his open coat billowing behind him until he came to a stop in front of Greg’s desk.

Greg glanced up from his evening damage reports. No one had spoken to him like that since … it had to be twenty years at least. He didn’t think it would be fair to expect a civilian to meet military standards of decorum, but it would be nice if Sherlock could manage basic courtesy. “How can I?” He tossed the files onto his desk. “I don’t have proof.”

“Donovan _saw_ her,” Sherlock fumed, pacing a track into his rug. Greg’s quarter’s were one of the few places on the ship which weren’t completely austere. A rich carpet covered the floor beneath his desk, and leather couches sat against each of the far walls.

Sherlock turned on his heel when he reached the end of the carpet, then doubled back. “Which means there were at least two of her, since the one Donovan saw blew up on Caprica. What more proof do you need?”

A headache blossomed behind his eyes. Fatigue had sunk into his very bones, and he’d become almost disconnected from his body, as though he were floating above his heavy limbs. Dimock had forgotten which of them had last taken a nap--it had been Dimock, but the fact that he’d forgotten had made Greg tell the XO it was his turn. He was regretting it.

“I believe Copperhead. And you. But I can’t just denounce her as a cylon unless I have some kind of test. I don’t want the fleet to know until I have a way of proving who’s a cylon, and who’s not.”

“I need a cylon to study if I’m to come up with a method of empirically proving who is or isn’t one. Find some pretext to detain her. Say she and Anderson conspired to build a backdoor into the CNP program so the cylons could exploit it--it might even be true, and if it isn’t, it might as well be.”

Greg paused, considering. He certainly didn’t like the idea of cylon running loose on his ship. And while he was no scientist, he understood that having a live cylon to run tests on would make it easier to make a cylon detector. “She did mention that Anderson contacted her firm and asked for assistance fixing a security vulnerability instead of reporting it to Fleet command,” he mused.

“What are you waiting for, then? At best, that’s gross negligence resulting in near-xenocide.”

“She also claimed she was on her way to report the vulnerability to Admiral Gregson and changed course after the first wave of attacks took out Picon Fleet Headquarters.”

Sherlock waved a dismissive hand. “I’m sure there’s a way to ignore or argue around that. Get my brother to help you drum up something to make her look treasonous. He’s good at that sort of thing.”

He suppressed his wince, but not quickly enough that Sherlock didn’t notice.

“What?” Sherlock demanded.

He was hardly going to mention Adler’s allegations against Mycroft Holmes to his brother. If Adler was a cylon, and it seemed highly probable that she was, then everything she’d told told him about Holmes’ alleged collaboration with the cylons was probably a lie meant to drive a wedge between himself and the President. Still, it was a possibility he had to consider. If Holmes were a traitor, it might make sense for the cylons to eliminate him in case he knew anything that could compromise them. Though wouldn’t it make sense for them to kill Holmes discreetly if that were the case? He could easily turn on them if Greg confronted him. He therefore doubted there was any truth to Adler’s allegations, but he had to admit he knew very little about Holmes’ past, and that it might be prudent to have Carmichael to look at those files, just in case.

“There will be no ‘drumming up’ of charges. I am willing to detain her on suspicion of collaborating with the enemy--but I am not calling it ‘gross negligence resulting in near-xenocide.’” He smiled at the colorful charge Sherlock had invented. It was entirely indecent to be smiling at anything connected to the near extinction of the human species, but gods knew no one could be under as much stress as he was without cracking at least a little bit.

“You’ll have to come up with your cylon-detection test quickly,” he continued. “I can’t detain her indefinitely without proof.”

“I know.” Sherlock stopped pacing. “And I’ll prove it.”

“I also still expect you to find out how in Hades they’re tracking us.”

Sherlock pressed his lips together, but he nodded.

Greg picked up the telephone on his desk and called Dimmock.

“XO speaking.”

“Call the sergeant at arms and ask her to arrest Ms Adler.”

 

* * *

 

“This is absolutely outrageous!” Irene Adler shouted, twisting in the grip of the marines on either side of her as they escorted her down the corridor. Her high cheekbones were flushed pink, and her upswept hair was disheveled, but she maintained perfect balance on her absurdly high pumps, which clicked on the steel floors. “I demand an immediate audience with the Commander.”

Sherlock kept his ears attuned to the conversation while keeping his eyes on the floor several meters down, which he was mopping. Living in the sardine tin with the knuckle draggers had its advantages. He’d been able to barter one of his shirts for a pair of coveralls which allowed him to blend in with the deckhands.

“I’m afraid that’s out of the question,” said the Sergeant at Arms.

“Lestrade has been corrupted by the President!” she shouted. “Mycroft Holmes is a traitor to his species. He sold you all out to the cylons!”

Sherlock’s lip pulled into a grin despite himself, but no one noticed him breaking character.

He waited until the marines and the furious Irene (could human appearing cylons even feel emotion?) were out of view and then doubled back to the duty locker they’d just exited. Lestrade had given him a memo asking for the ship’s crew to cooperate with his investigation, and Molly Hooper had given him the access codes.

The locker was virtually identical to his own. Eight racks, stacked two high and two deep, took up all of the wall space. Curtains could be drawn around the beds to create a rude approximation of privacy. A long metal table for eating or playing cards took up most of the middle of the room.

The actual lockers were next to the racks: one in each corner and two pairs in the center of the long sides of the room between the racks. Protocol said the person in the top rack got the corner locker and the ones in the bottom racks got the lockers in the middle. The actual locks on these slate gray affronts to interior design were depressingly easy to pick. Determining which of them was Irene Adler’s was simplicity itself.: he simply opened and shut them until he found one with a red wheeled suitcase.

The contents of the suitcase were more or less what he expected. Two changes of suits, both as sharp as the one she’d been wearing on her arrival, a roll-out toiletry bag containing expensive designer cosmetics, an assortment of racy lingerie. There were two items which he’d not expected. A riding crop, which didn’t really tell him anything but information he didn’t want to know about Anderson’s sex life (and Donovan’s?). And a device he’d remembered seeing on the back of the DRADIS console. An oval-shaped, white plastic case which housed some kind of electronics, with a red, flashing indicator light. He’d assumed it was a transmitter of some kind.

Well. That couldn’t have worked out better if he’d planted it there.

Sherlock tucked the device in his coveralls, then went in search of Lestrade.

 

* * *

 

Sherlock Holmes stormed into his office again, though this time he was wearing a deckhand’s olive drab coveralls instead of his usual coat. He set a bizarre looking electronic device on Lestrade’s desk. “Irene Adler stole this from the CIC. Can you advise what it does--what she could have been using it for?”

Greg frowned. While he didn’t know how to operate every piece of tech at every station on Galactica, he knew the CIC like the back of his hand, and what belonged in it and what didn’t. “That’s not ours.”

“It was attached to the back of the DRADIS console,” said Sherlock. “I can almost see it, now. Right where all the cables plug in. I assumed it was an antenna, something.”

Lestrade picked it up gingerly. The red indicator light was flashing, reminding him of nothing so much as the red scanners the raiders used, glowing eyes moving side to side in their chrome skulls. There was no doubt in his mind he was looking at a piece of cylon tech.

“Absolutely not. If you saw it there, then it was planted there. It can’t have been the Adler woman; she’s far too conspicuous.” Someone else, then. There were multiple cylon agents collaborating on his ship.

“Tell me there’s security footage, _something_ which documents the goings on in the CIC.”

He shook his head. “Security cameras require networked computers, and--”

“You don’t allow networked computers on this ship.” Sherlock tore his fingers through his hair, biting his lips. “It clearly broadcasts a signal of some kind. My best guess is that it’s a beacon--it could even be how the cylons are finding us.”  
“In that case, I want it jettisoned out an airlock immediately.”

Sherlock’s eyebrows went up. “Without even knowing what it is? This is a rare opportunity to study a cylon device, figure out their technology--”

He raised a hand, silencing him. “It’s not a risk I can afford to take. We don’t have time to investigate that thing. Focus on the cylon detector.”

“I thought you said you also wanted me to find out how they’re tracking us. This could be the key.”

“And it could also be what’s drawing them to us. I want it destroyed.”

Sherlock’s jaw worked, but he nodded. “Fine.”

 

* * *

 

Galactica’s brig was like something out of a B movie. Two marines were posted outside a heavy vaulted door with its own airlock, and two more accompanied him inside. A narrow strip of concrete floor where an observer could stand separated the door from the cells. There were two of them, made of heavy steel bars. The right one was empty, and contained a standard metal cot and a flat mattress. The left one contained a metal table, which had been bolted to the floor, and a hospital bed borrowed from sickbay equipped with full-body medical restraints. Sherlock had thought that was excessive, but Lestrade had considered it a necessary precaution in case the cylon resisted being examined.

At the moment, however, Irene sat perched atop the bed. As he walked towards her cell, she rose up, uncoiling like a snake. She’d been stripped of her red suit, which hadn’t contained anything unusual, and her black stiletto heels, which had metal shanks which could have made effective weapons. A hospital gown lay folded atop her mattress, but she had declined to put it on. She strode towards him, naked, and curled her red-tipped fingers around the bars, peering between them.

“So you’re Sherlock Holmes,” she mused. “The clever scientist in the funny hat.”

He hated that the tabloid rags always ran that picture. He’d been trying to keep a low profile after his return from the dead, and unfortunately a paparazzo had snapped a photo of him pulling the brim of a hat with ear-flaps down over his eyes.

“And you’re _not_ Irene Adler,” he retorted, careful to keep his focus on her face, though his peripheral vision picked up the details of her pale form. She had high, pert breasts and a waspish waist, and lithe, gazelle-like legs, long even without heels. Honestly, it didn’t surprise him she was a cylon. She scarcely looked real--more like a heterosexual man’s fantasy, a construct of meticulously crafted femininity that few women bothered with anymore.

“Irene Adler went out with a bang on Caprica,” she turned around, giving him and the marines a view of her round arse, “in more ways than one.” She took a wide stance, legs apart, and thrust her wrists through the bars behind her.

One of the marines snapped the cuff around first one wrist (which was bird-thin; she had to tighten it almost all the way down to get it snug), then the other, leaving two bars between them.

Irene’s hands were now fixed in place, but she turned her head to follow the second marine as he unlocked the cell. He kept his eyes on the door as he opened it, and after, stood beside it at parade rest, facing the concrete wall.

Sherlock strode inside the cell and set down a toolbox he’d commandeered from one of the supply closets. Inside, he’d stashed everything his memo from Lestrade had gotten Doctor Stamford to let him take out of sickbay: stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, wartenberg wheel, syringes for drawing blood, a biopsy needle--everything he thought might be useful to try to discern what distinguished cylons from humans. He personally would have prefered to take her into the laboratory, but Lestrade had insisted she remain in the brig. He set the whole kit down on the table. Irene watched him from the side of her cell, chin high, chest proud.

“Where’s your coat?” she asked. “The coveralls don’t suit you.”

“At least I’m clothed.”

She laughed, a rich, throaty sound, tossing her head. Her chestnut hair fell around her shoulders--they’d taken all her hairpins to prevent her from picking the cuffs. “Does nudity make you uncomfortable, Sherlock Holmes?”

He ignored her, focusing instead on the female marine, who removed the hospital restraints from the bed and brought them to the wall. She knelt down to buckle the cuffs around Irene’s ankles. Irene stared down at her, a small smile smile curling around her lips. She winked conspiratorially. “I don’t think he knows where to look.”

He snorted, and busied himself unpacking his kit.

“No really,” Irene’s voice was cold. “You should look.”

He turned his head just as Irene snapped her foot into a front kick, catching the marine beneath the chin. The angle of her neck and the crunching sound told him she was dead before she hit the ground.

Sherlock dove forward, angling for her sidearm. He managed to unfasten the marine’s holster and get his hand around the grip as Irene jerked her arms forward and snapped the chain on her cuffs. He knelt up, cocked the gun, and aimed for her kneecap. His first shot went wide, the bullet burying itself in the wall. Irene grabbed the muzzle, snatched the gun from his hand, pistol whipped him once across the face with it, then stepped behind him. The cool steel of the barrel pressed against his occipital bun.

Sherlock slowly raised his hands above his head. The fingers of his right were white hot and numb--he wondered if his index finger had broken.

The other marine stood facing Irene, his own weapon trained on her.

“Put the gun down,” she demanded, “or I will put a bullet in his head.”

Sherlock snatched the gun barrel with his throbbing hand, pulling her arm over his shoulder and down his body. He wrenched the gun sideways--driving his elbow hard into her thigh and throwing his body weight backwards into her.

She snarled and staggered onto her heels--he continued to rotate his body into hers, elbowing her in the kidney as he flipped onto his back. He landed hard on his shoulder blades, rotating the gun in his hands until his fingers were on the trigger again, and kicked her in the solar plexus, pushing her off of him, and then once in the face, sending her sprawling.

He cocked the hammer back, aiming the gun at her, heartbeat thundering in his ears.

Irene curled up from the ground, propping herself on her forearms. Blood streamed from her broken nose, but she was smiling.

“Don’t shoot!” Sherlock shouted. “It’s what she wants.”

The marine holstered his gun and drew his taser.

Sherlock didn’t even know if a stun gun would work on a cylon, but Irene convulsed and screamed the same as any human, hands twisting into claws, face contorting into a rictus. The marine kept the current on as Sherlock scrambled to his feet and darted past her writhing form. He slammed the cell door shut behind him and turned the lock home.

The marine held the taser trigger longer than Sherlock thought was strictly necessary while Sherlock leaned against the wall struggling to catch his breath. After a moment, he cut off the current and retracted the electrodes. Irene’s body twitched, then went still.

“Thank you,” Sherlock breathed to the marine.

The man nodded, staring first at Irene, then at his fallen comrade still inside the cell. He shook his head, then picked up his radio.

As the marine called for backup, Sherlock realized he’d left the cylon device the bottom of his kit, which was now locked inside the cell. He’d intended to ask Irene about it. He understood that he’d disobeyed a direct order, and that probably that meant he could be shot, locked up, something. Maybe they would put him in the cell next to Irene’s.

He was giggling when the marines stormed in--first the two who had been stationed outside the door, and then a group of others, weapons drawn, body armor on. John Watson stood among them. Relief spread through Sherlock’s limbs, hot and sweet, like morpha.

John took a brief look at Irene’s prone body, the dead marine, then Sherlock, who had slid down the wall to a seated position, knees in front of him. He’d managed to suppress the giggling, but his fingers were shaking with adrenaline and his heartbeat was still galloping.

“What happened?”

The marine who’d tased Irene spoke, his voice hoarse. “The prisoner attacked Clarke when she attempted to restrain her. She’s much stronger than she looks--snapped the cuffs--and clearly combat trained. She managed to get her hands on Clarke’s sidearm. That one,” he cocked his head at Sherlock, “disarmed her.”

John raised both eyebrows, respect in the lines of his haggard face. “Really?”

Sherlock shrugged.

“It was nicely done,” said the marine. “For a civilian.”

“What do we do now?” asked John.

“I don’t know.” Sherlock wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His tongue was dry. He tried to remember when he’d last drunk water--failed. “Tase her again, sedate her, restrain her. She’s clearly far more dangerous than we thought.” He was careful not to say too much--none of the marines knew what she was.

John nodded. “You heard him.”

A klaxon blared, followed by the grating shriek of the comm. “This is the Commander. Set condition one throughout the ship. We are under attack. Repeat, set condition one throughout the ship. We are under attack.”

John’s right hand curled into a fist as he glanced from the prisoner to Sherlock and back again. “Frak.”

Sherlock closed his eyes and slumped against the wall, alarm bells echoing in his ears. “My sentiments exactly.”


	5. Episode 5: 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cylons attack for the 33rd time. Galactica’s crew has reached it’s limit. Lestrade risks everything on an offensive maneuver, deciding that sometimes you have to roll the hard six.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, sorry folks, this is sort of a half update. Real life really got to me this week, and I've been sick. Also, battle scenes are hard. Anyway, I'm posting the first half of this chapter on schedule, and will post the rest of it over the weekend. Sorry not sorry for the cliffhanger!
> 
> Update: As of 12/15/16, this chapter is complete.

The klaxons continued to scream in John’s ears. At least this time he was confident they were real. He sometimes heard them in his sleep--well, whatever passed for sleep lately. He knew it was the stims. He was hearing things that weren’t there; soon he’d start seeing things or imagining all his friends were cylons.

“Sherlock?” John lightly touched Sherlock’s arm. He was staring in Irene’s direction, except his eyes had glazed over and John wasn’t sure he was looking at her at all.

Sherlock blinked rapidly, then shook his head. “Sorry, just….”

“I have to get back to the CIC.”

Sherlock nodded. “I should stay, make sure she’s restrained. And then I still need to take her vitals, collect samples.”

“Yeah.” The last thing they needed was a cylon loose on board during a major battle. He turned to the marines. “You’re to help Mr. Holmes secure the prisoner. Afterwards, report to the Sergeant at Arms.”

He gave Sherlock’s arm a squeeze. “Be careful.”

Sherlock dropped his gaze to John’s hand. “Good hunting.”

 

* * *

 

Greg turned to Jeannette. “Okay, Lieutenant, what have we got?”

“Multiple targets. Bearing 371 carom 552. The usual formation: two basestars, several hundred raiders, wait--” she gestured toward two red squares, larger than the raiders, moving behind the base stars.

Dimmock narrowed his eyes at the screen. “What the frak are those?”

“Not sure, sir, but the raiders appear to be taking a defensive position around them.”

“Launch the alert vipers,” said Lestrade. “Get me eyes on those mystery ships. Who’s flying CAP?”

“Copperhead and Crashdown, sir,” said Jeannette.

“Put me through.”

 

* * *

 

“Copperhead!” Lestrade’s voice crackled inside Sally’s helmet. She’d drawn the short straw, this time. She was on her third CAP rotation with Crashdown, which meant she’d just taken a stim as Doc instructed. She was wide awake, but her fingers were frakking shaking on her steering column. She wove her way through the civilian vessels, Crashdown below her, moving towards the formation of toasters that had jumped down on top of them. The five alert burst out of Galactica’s port side launch and raced towards the fence-like formation of raiders.

“We have two unidentified ships at the back of that raider formation,” Lestrade continued. “I need you to use your Mark I eyeballs and get a look at them.”

“Roger that.” She pressed her lips together. Flying behind enemy lines with a recon package was one thing. Flying into combat and trying to get a look at a protected target with her own eyes was another entirely.

“The rest of the Mark II squadron will be drawing the enemy fire away from you.”

She glanced behind her. Vipers blasted out of tube after tube, forming up to cover the civies and engage the raiders. They’d done this drill thirty two frakking times. At some point, they were going to crack from the fatigue.

“Okay, Crashdown, take my wing. “Offensive Thorch weave. We’re gonna shoot ourselves a hole.”

She spiraled left, then right, Crashdown mirroring her maneuvers, each of them driving any raiders in front of them into the other’s line of fire. The two of them pressed forward, carving a hole through the raiders like a twisting screw.

The alert viper’s comms chattered in her helmet.

“Multiple bandits, left, ten, high. Range 40.

“Weapons free, committing.”

“Hotdog, break right!”

“Fireball, your six!”

She blocked out the noise and focused on her targets, two big, squat, trowel-nosed vessels with a pair of mean looking triple canons on the front. 

“Sir,” she told Lestrade, “these look like gunships.”

One of them launched a missile at her, which she corkscrewed to evade.

“And they have ship to ship--” she wheeled back to cover Crashdown “--missiles.”

The usual chrome-skulled pilot was on the left side instead of in between the wings like on a raider, leaving space for--

“Holy frak that’s a hatch! These are troop transports!”

“Copperhead, bandits!” shouted Crashdown. “Three, down, right.”

She fired both MECS into the raider on her three, then rolled right. Crashdown fired on the one beneath her.

“Copperhead get out of there! All fighters, cover the civilians while we begin jump prep.”

“Rodger! Crashdown, defensive Thorch--” She looked frantically behind, then below her. “Crashdown?”

“High!” He shouted, and then, “I’m hit, I’m hit! Can’t eject!”

 

* * *

 

“You had better make this quick,” grumbled Doctor Stamford as he strode into the brig. His round, normally affable face was drawn and tight, and there were bags under his brown eyes. “The Commander is has deployed the marines to the hangar decks.”

Sherlock frowned. “He thinks the cylons will board us.”

“Let’s hope he’s being overcautious. All the same, I should be in sickbay preparing for casualties.”

“I promise you, I wouldn’t have bothered you if I didn’t think it was of the highest importance. This patient,” he nodded at Irene, who lay unconscious and strapped to the hospital bed, “may hold the key to evading the cylons.”

Stamford frowned. “So she’s--”

Lestrade hadn’t really authorized him to explain the situation to Stamford. “A cylon collaborator.”

“Jupiter,” Stamford hissed. He put his fingers against her carotid artery and palpated her pulse point. “What’d you give her?”

Sherlock gestured to the empty vials of tranquilizers, muscle relaxants and antipsychotics on the table next to the hospital bed.

Stamford raised both eyebrows.

“She killed one marine before she was tased and another when we were wrestling her into the restraints.”

“Amphetamine psychosis?”

“Let’s just say she has an unusually high tolerance.”

Stamford’s eyes narrowed. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“You’ve never had experience with a patient like this before, so it wouldn’t make a difference even if I did tell you.”

Stamford put his stethoscope in his ears and rested the bell against her chest. Like everything else on Galactica, the medical technology was primitive due to the requirement that everything be analog. He listened for breath sounds. “But she is--that is to say, she responded to the medications the way a … person with a high tolerance to benzodiazepines might?”

“Yes. It just took about trebble the dosage you would expect would be required to subdue a female of her height and weight.”

“What exactly are you expecting me to do?”

“Well, I already took the opportunity of collecting blood and tissue samples earlier. I was hoping you might bring her around so that I can ask her some questions.”

“You’ve just told me that I’ve never practiced on anyone with her  _ condition _ , that she’s hostile and violent, and that she may not respond to medication as expected.”

“Yes.”  
“And you expect me to help you run a narco-interrogation, which is highly unethical, for one, and for another, isn’t even that effective, especially on those trained to withstand it.”

“Oh, nothing like that. Just wake her up so I can talk to her and put her out again if she becomes too combative.”

“You are crazier than a shithouse rat, Mr. Holmes.”

“So I’ve been informed, repeatedly. But the fate of everyone on this ship may depend on it, so, will you do it?”

Stamford opened his medical bag. “Lords of Kobol help me, I will.”

* * *

 

“That’s a boarding party,” Lestrade hissed between his teeth. “I want all marines deployed to defensive positions. Concentrate forces on the landing bays. And ready the main batteries.” He wondered absently what improvements the cylons had made to the centurions. If Irene Adler was their infiltration model, what might their new foot soldiers look like?

Carmichael glanced at her DRADIS display. “Baseships launching missiles, forty--correction, fifty--plus inbound,” she frowned. “None of them are targeting us. All of these are aimed at the Fleet.”

Worse and worse. With her heavy plating, Galactica could handle a few direct missile hits, even from nuclear warheads. The smaller civilian vessels could easily be destroyed with one. “I want all vipers to stop chasing raiders and focus on intercepting those missiles. And every Raptor we’ve got needs to be launching countermeasures.”

Jeanette broadcast the order to the air wing. “All forces, priority: intercept enemy missiles targeting civilian vessels.”

The tiny green triangles representing the vipers and the squares representing the raptors moved to intercept the advancing red blips.

“Sir?” Carmichael pointed at the still line of red on her screen. “They’ve stopped advancing.”

“Copperhead, can you confirm?”

“Affirmative! Raiders are holding formation. Repeat, raiders are holding formation.”

“What about those troop transports?”

Carmichael licked her lips. “The same. All cylon vessels are holding formation.”

“They had us,” said Dimmock. “Game over. Why the hell did they freeze like that?” 

Mycroft, who had been standing at Lestrade’s elbow but had remained quiet throughout the battle, cleared his throat softly. “Perhaps they’re waiting for something.”

“Like what?” asked Lestrade.

“If it’s a boarding party, they might be waiting for our prisoner to commit some act of sabotage.”

 

* * *

 

Stamford pushed the syringe into Irene’s IV bag. “Now I’m warning you. Even when used on a regular patient coming out of anaesthesia, benzo receptor antagonists can induce agitation. There’s no telling how it will affect someone who was already hostile and violent. And with the doses of tranquilizers you gave her, I’m not sure I can safely administer enough to make her fully coherent.”

“So much the better,” Sherlock murmured.

“It also lowers the seizure threshold. The fact that you tased her earlier probably doesn’t help. This is an educated guess, mind. It’s not exactly something I’ve studied.”

Sherlock tapped his left hip. “Well, consider this your opportunity to advance the cause of science. I should advise you that I’m prepared to taze her again, if necessary.” He’d asked the marine to leave the weapon with him when he’d left with John to report to the flight deck.

Stamford sighed. “I’ll throw an anti-epileptic and an anticonvulsant into the cocktail, then.” He inserted a second syringe.

The effects were immediate and obvious. Irene began to thrash, though whether she was seizing or simply fighting against the restraints was unclear. Her eyes opened, pupils contracted tight, just like a human in flight or fight mode. Her red-tipped fingers curled into claws, and she shook and flailed.

Sherlock stroked her hair, which was sweated wet and stuck to her forehead. It was strange, watching another person like this. He wondered if this is how he’d looked, coming back from overdose.

Her eyes settled on him, still not focused. “First of eight. All this has happened before. The cities of Caprica are burning. Do you want to go out with a bang? I can see them all. We seven, now six, believe ourselves without sin, but sin will consume us. Devices on alert. Authentication confirmed. End of line.”

“What the frak--” began Stamford.

Sherlock held up a hand to shush him. He had no idea if Irene was speaking in code or just … malfunctioning. But he resolved to commit whatever she said to memory in case it was useful.

“Second of eight. The shipyards of Scorpia are burning. Mycroft Holmes is the harbinger of death. He will lead humanity to its end.”

Or perhaps this was all an act, and she was continuing her tactics from before, of sowing discord in their ranks.

“Did she just say the President--”

“She’s just spewing gibberish. Do you think you could make her  _ slightly  _ more coherent.”

“I warned you--”

“And I told you she can handle the dosage.”

“Just give her a moment.” He removed a penlight from his lab coat pocket and shined it in her eyes.

She blinked, pupils shrinking. “Are you alive?”

Stamford put his fingers on her carotid and took her pulse again.

Sherlock snapped his fingers twice.

Irene turned her head, and there it was--the steel stare focused on him. For a moment, he swore her eyes flashed red. “Oh. It’s you again. Sherlock Holmes. Here to  _ interrogate  _ me?”

“Good. You’re awake.”

“And you’re still asleep. Whatever you want to ask, ask.”

He hesitated. He knew he’d disobeyed a direct order by keeping the cylon device on board the ship. But Stamford didn’t.

He opened the tool kit and removed the gray oval. It’s red eye still blinked menacingly. “What is this?”

She smiled. “Salvation.”

 

* * *

 

“What are the cylons doing now?” asked Lestrade.

“Continuing to hold formation.”

“What do we do now?” asked Dimmock. “Begin jump prep?”

Lestrade watched as they advanced towards the raiders. “Yes. Mark IIs are to continue to protect the civilian fleet while their FTLs are spooling as before. But send out coordinates to somewhere close, within our Raptors’ FTL range. All Raptors will jump with the civilian fleet and protect them until we regroup. Vipers are to engage the raiders while we launch an offensive.”

Mycroft raised his eyebrows. “Have you considered that this might be a trap? And that if the cylons are tracking the fleet and jump on them before we do? The Raptors won’t last more than a few minutes without us.”

Greg pressed his lips together. He’d need to speak with the President about not questioning any military decisions, especially not in front of the crew, later. “It likely is a trap. But we’re at the limits of human endurance. We can’t keep running since we can’t figure out how they keep chasing us. If we can’t strike a hard enough blow to make them reconsider chasing us, it’s all over anyway. And they don’t know we have Mark IIIs or nukes. It’s the best chance at an offensive we’re likely to get.”

Mycroft nodded, but his face was very grave.

Lestrade rolled his shoulders back. “Sometimes you have to roll the hard six.”

“Scramble the Mark IIIs into a strike force. Ready the main batteries, and get our nukes in the tubes.” The had a limited qty of both nuclear and conventional warheads in their arsenal from Ragnar. He wasn’t sure they’d ever be able to collect any more, but if ever there were a time to use them, it was now.

“Start calculating a firing solution,” said Dimmock. “Salvo fire. I want all batteries focused on those gunships.” He glanced at Lestrade. “We’ll need to get closer if we want to aim true.”

Specialist Janette looked up. “Strike one is in the tubes and preparing for launch.”

“Put Captain Watson on speaker.”

She flipped the switch.

“Doc. Your job is to engage those raiders and try to lead them away from the gunships. And stay out of our line of fire. I want to hit them hard and fast.”

“This is what we’ve all been waiting for, sir.”

The new group of green triangles appeared on the DRADIS. “Mark IIIs have launched.”

“Alright, vipers,” said Doc over the speaker. “Weapons free. Engage. Toasters have no idea we’ve got the Mark IIIs up and running. Hit ‘em while they’ve still got their pants down.”

 

* * *

 

“Roger that!” affirmed Sally, jaw tightening in grim satisfaction as she heard the strike orders. She launched her only javelin missile at the closer of the two transports. “This is for Crashdown, toasters!”

The warhead landed a solid hit on the vessel’s side, fire spreading over the hull like water where oxygen leaked.

“This is frakking payback.”

She wove through the maze of orange tracer flares left by viper MECS as they adjusted their targeting of raiders, shooting everything in sight and making her way towards the civvies. The Mark IIs and Raptors had formed a perimeter around the semicircle of vessels behind Galactica, and were busy intercepting dozens of inbound missiles, from both the raiders and the gunships, who were making quick work of any viper that got too close.

“Leave those turkeys alone!” she shouted over her radio. “Focus on the raiders, let Galactica deal with those bastards.”

Her radiological alarm flashed. The Old Man was using their nukes. The gunships began to crumble, explosions welling like blisters beneath their metal skin. Oddly, they weren’t returning Galactica’s fire, only attacking vipers and civilian vessels.

The Mark III strike team was having a blast cutting their teeth on the raiders. “Yeah! Come on, baby!”

“How do you like that? You seeing this? Got this toaster padlocked!”

“I got another where that one came from!”

The radiological alarm flashed again. One of the gunships flew apart, shrapnel flying into the raiders around it like a flak barrage.

One by one, the civilian vessels began to jump away, disappearing with a folding of the light. As they moved off, the vipers that had been covering them joined into the firefight.

“Holy frak, said Doc. “Baseships are spooling up their FTLs.”

“They’re retreating?” asked Dimmock.

“Looks like. Request permission to engage them, sir. They’re actually much softer targets than those gunships. Their only defense is their raiders, and those are scampering back to their nest like roaches.”

“Do it,” said Lestrade. “Target their FTLs.”

The strike force wheeled and flew towards the basestars, launching javelins towards the metal column at the ships’ hearts which connected the nested caltrops.

“Mark IIs, you are now strike two,” said the commander. “Engage the raiders. Weapons free. Strike one, target the baseships. Leave that gunner to us.”

Sally got back into the dogfight, dancing around two raiders and making them target each other, when she saw the bright flash of Doc’s Mark VII. So Sherlock had fixed the computer system on that thing, too.

He flew right up into that baseship, launching a javelin at the spooling FTL. Her radiological alarm flashed.

The center of the basestar exploded in a ring of fire.

 

* * *

 

Two things happened at once.

“I got the bastard!” Doc shouted over speaker. “First basestar’s FTL is down, those assholes won’t be chasing us again anytime soon!”

Carmichael looked up from the DRADIS console, lips white. “Second basestar has jumped, sir.”

“We have to assume they’re still tracking the fleet.” The President had been right, the raptors couldn’t hold the remaining basestar and its raiders off for long. “All vipers, return to the nest immediately. Tell the Chief to prepare for combat landings.”

Mycroft Holmes stood in silence, his expression unreadable.

“Start spooling our own FTLs. We jump as soon as our birds are home.”

The green blips on the DRADIS crawled at a snail’s pace towards the Galactica. The red retreated towards the crippled basestar.

Greg clenched his hands into fists, watching as the green blips began to disappear as the vipers hit the decks. “Where are we with jump prep?”

“Ready as soon as the last vipers are aboard, sir,” said Carmichael.

He looked at the two green squares. “Who’s still out there?”

“Copperhead and Doc, sir.”

“Start closing the hangar doors. And jump as soon as we have a hard seal.”

Jannette hesitated. “Sir?”

“They’ll make it.”

She relayed the order. “Chief is initiating hangar closing sequence.”

Carmichael stared at the DRADIS console.

“Doc and Copperhead are inbound. ETA ten seconds.”

Greg’s fingernails dug into his palms. “Doc, Copperhead, get your asses in here!”

“Coming in as hot as she can handle, sir!” shouted Doc.

“I don’t care if you wreck your landing gear! Doors are closing now.”

The first green blip disappeared, then the second.

“Doors are closed sir,” Janette’s voice was a breathless whisper.

“Jump.”

 

* * *

 

“Holy frak.” Sally pulled off her helmet and wiped the sweat pouring off her forehead with the back of her hand.

“Remind me never be in the cockpit when we jump again,” said John, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Yeah.” Sally was used to high g’s, but having space time warp around you when still in the air had almost made her sick up in her helmet.

“I thought the door was closing on your tail,” said John.

“I thought you were going to crash on top of me,” said Sally.

He grinned.

“What you did, taking out the FTL on that basestar. That was ballsy piece of flying. I couldn't have done it better myself.”

He put his hand to his ear. “I’m sorry, I didn't hear you.”

She shouted, “I said that I couldn't have done it better myself!”

His smile broadened, and the tip of his tongue darted out in that way that always made her stomach flip.

“Your landing was crap, though.”

He shrugged. “Hooper will probably chew me out. I’ll tell her the Old Man gave me permission to frak up my landing gear.”

Sally sighed. “And now I guess we have to do this whole shit again.”

“I don’t know,” said John. “Something tells me the toasters are going to lick their wounds and regroup for a while.”

 

* * *

 

Sherlock Holmes strode into the CIC with as much swagger as any officer, a gesture made all the more incongruous by the fact that he was still in deckhands’ coveralls.

“I take it you have something to report?” said Lestrade

“Yes. I think I know how the cylons were tracking us.”

 


	6. Episode 6: Blowing Off Steam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After hundreds of hours of high alert, anxious waiting, and combat, Galactica’s victory grants the fleet a well-earned reprieve. Sally and John hit the head to shower and celebrate, but their jubilation is short-lived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is something of a double update. I posted the end of Episode 5 along with Episode 6. I realized that probably AO3 probably didn't send out update notices when I edited the chapter, so, if the version of chapter 5 you read didn't end in a firefight, you might want to go back and read what you missed.

John was still feeling the effects of the stims. He didn’t think there were ants crawling under his eyelids, like Sherlock had warned him, but he had the vague sensation that his skin was too tight, and it tingled. His fingers trembled if he held his arms straight out, and he jumped whenever there were sudden movements or noises.

Sally was strutting beside him with the positively radiant expression she always wore when her blood was up. The effects he’d grown accustomed to seeing after training exercises and maneuvers were only intensified after a battle. Not just a battle. A victory. After they’d crippled the one basestar, they had jumped two more times, and the cylons hadn’t followed. Lestrade had tentatively declared their tail lost. After hundreds of hours of high alert, anxious waiting, and combat, they were finally relieved. John knew he should probably head for his rack, but suspected his adrenaline was still so high he was going to end up staring at the ceiling anyway. Besides, he was sweat soaked underneath his jockey uniform.

“I think I’ll hit the head.” He said.

“I hear that,” Sally agreed.

And just like that, John knew it was going to happen again. It really shouldn’t. It had been bad enough after Bill’s funeral, but now …

_You’re the CAG--act like it._

Sally herself had told him that. But now, she matched his pace, not quite looking at him, as they both deliberately made their way towards the head, which was going to be a ghost town, since everyone with any sense was asleep except for the poor suckers who were on duty for another three hours.

 

They started stripping off their flight suits in unison as soon as the doors swung closed behind them. John stuck his helmet in the nearest open locker and shoved the one piece jumpsuit down to his waist while Sally did the same; he didn’t even manage to get to his belt before Sally was unfastening it for him, pulling his tank tops over his head and pushing his back against the metal doors, which slammed shut. He knew his sweat reeked of stims and adrenaline, but then, so did hers, so he slipped a hand between them and yanked her zipper the rest of the way down.

She grinned approvingly and bit his collarbone, pinning his trapped arms above his head.

“We should not be frakking doing this,” he protested.

She released him and stepped back to peel of her tank tops. John had planned on saying something about acting like a CAG and fraternization, but the words stuck in his throat at the sight of her large dark nipples bouncing free of her sports bra.

“I’m still going to be twice as good a pilot as you tomorrow, Doc.”

He smirked. “And I’m still going to throw you in hack for insubordination if you say shit like that in front of the others.”

“Then get your godsdamned clothes off and let’s hit the showers.”

“Is that your way of saying I stink?”

“That’s my way of saying we should soap up one another’s naked bodies.”

He let his eyes move to Sally’s well sculpted ass when she pushed her suit down and bent over to take off her boots. “I could go for that.”

 

Sally was true to her word; they lathered each other up, and then she had the positively brilliant idea of letting John thrust his cock between her soap-slicked thighs while she braced herself against the shower wall. He realized cigarettes weren’t the only thing that was going to fetch a premium on the black market; condoms were going to cost an arm and a leg, too. But that was alright, John could get creative. He put a hand between Sallys legs, working her clit with his fingertips while his cock brushed against her swollen lips, she was hissing and bucking beneath him in no time. She put her hands over his, showing him her preferred pressure and rhythm, and he carefully repeated the motion until she moaned and shuddered against him. Her final, broken sounding cry made him spill against the wall.

She leaned forward against the tile, still breathing hard. “Well, I guess that’s why they call you Three Colonies Watson.”

He kissed the back of her neck. “I appreciate the compliment, but I don’t think so. If you’re still up for it, I’ll show you.”

“I think I’ve got at least another hour before the stims wear off.”

 

After they’d dried off, John spread Sally’s towel between the sinks and had her sit on it with her back to the mirror. He folded his own and dropped it onto the floor, kneeling on it between her legs. She obligingly spread her thighs and scooted to the edge for him.

For a moment, he just looked at her, admiring the dark folds of her lips framed by tiny tufts of curling hair, the barest hint of pale pink peeking between them. A younger John might have laid teasing kisses along her belly and thighs, but he had since come to believe that these techniques were for amateurs. Especially the first time he was with a woman, (not that this was really the first time, but he suspected Sally probably didn’t remember much more than he did about last time) John believed in demonstrating a willingness to take care of her right away. So he spread her outer lips with both hands and immediately buried his face in her folds, sucking both her her inner lips and clit into his mouth.

Sally hummed in appreciation and hooked her legs around his shoulders, head tilted down to watch him work. He varied the motions of his tongue, alternating between broad licks up along her labia and delicate circles with the tip directly on her clit, watching her face carefully for signs of her response. She closed her eyes and arched towards him whenever he used the flat of his tongue, so he tongued her like an ice cream cone, sweeping up her clit from beneath and pressing it back against its hood.

“Like that,” she hissed, rocking her hips. “And put your fingers in me.”

He pulled back with a grin. John always preferred a partner who knew what they liked. He put two fingers in his mouth, getting them slick, and then slipped them into Sally, not horizontally but vertically, then turned them in her like a key in a lock. She moaned, and he turned the other direction, alternating, right, center, left, center, pushing his tongue against her all the while.

She became steadily wetter, juices flowing onto his tongue, musky, bitter and bright. He removed his fingers long enough to dip his tongue inside her, straining for more of her taste, and then began sucking her clit again.

“Ah, that’s a bit ….”

He pulled his mouth off of her with a smack. “Too much?”

“Yes. Just your tongue is better, and your fingers--”

He thrust them back into her, curling upwards against the firm, wrinkled spot just inside.

“Frak, your fingers.”

He resumed his pattern of broad, steady licks, making slow, firm circles on the swelling spot as he lapped.

“John,” Sally’s voice was thick. “John, there’s something I should tell you.”

He paused, looking up at her between her thighs, admiring the firm muscles of her abdomen and the soft weight of her breasts.

“Don’t stop with your fingers.”

He beckoned inside her again.

“But your mouth … You might want to, um, I sometimes …”

He kept massaging her spot, but worked his feet underneath him so he could stand, kissing his way up her belly until he was nuzzling her neck.

“Squirt?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

He pulled her into a kiss, finding her clit with the ball of his thumb and caressing it as his tongue slid into her mouth.

John had had one ex-girlfriend who’d been able to ejaculate and had been surprised once with a one night stand. While he knew that things that worked on one women sometimes fell flat with another, he remembered what had worked on the ex and stiffened his hand, thrusting rapidly and shallowly with his whole arm tensing, doing his best to imitate a power drill. Sally bucked against him, nearly screamed into his mouth, and then he felt the sudden, hot gush of her climax spilling into his hand.

He broke the kiss to look down between her legs, watching her juices soak into the towel beneath her. He was a bit disappointed to have missed it.

“Can you go again?” he asked.

She bit her lip. “Maybe?”

He grinned, and tensed his hand again.

Sally hummed and closed her eyes, tilting her head back.

John froze when he saw a familiar, sharply featured face in the mirror behind Sally’s shoulder. His gaze locked with that of Sherlock’s reflection.

Sally opened her eyes, sensing his alarm. They narrowed when they landed on Sherlock’s lanky form in the doorway. “Enjoying the show, freak?”

Two spots of color appeared on Sherlock’s high cheekbones, and he abruptly turned and fled.

John snatched his towel from the floor and hurriedly wrapped it around his waist, ignoring how clammy and cold it was, and ran after him.

“Sherlock, wait!”

He turned around, somewhat stiffly. As tall as he was, he looked small in his bartered coveralls, which had been cut for someone with a heftier chest and shoulders.

“Look, I know how that looked back there, but it’s not … We’re not ….”

Sherlock arched an eyebrow.

“I mean, yes, we were ….”

“Frakking,” Sherlock supplied helpfully.

“That. But it’s just … Everyone’s been stressed for weeks, maybe no one more than the flight crew--”

Something flitted over Sherlock’s face which made John think he disagreed.

“People need to blow off steam,” he said. “We’re still going to do our jobs.”

Sally padded out of the shower area and stood next to him with her arms folded, still stark naked.

“What I’m saying is,” John continued, “that I’d really appreciate if you not mention this to the Commander.”

Sherlock scowled. “Was that seriously a concern of yours, Captain Watson?” The honorific somehow came out like an insult. “You thought I would _tattle_ on you?”

“No,” he protested. “I just wanted to make sure you understood. We’re not ….” he stumbled for words, “compromised.”

“I couldn’t care less whom you frak, John.”

Sally glared at him. “I am here, you know.”

“And I’ve no interest in starting gossip.”

“Thank you,” John said. “That’s ... good. Thanks.”

“For what, frakking perving on us?” Sally asked.

“Well we were kind of in the head …. ”

“Quite.” Sherlock looked between them. “If you two are finished, I’d like to have a shower.” He pulled open the nearest empty locker and unzipped his coveralls.

“Yeah, we’re done,” said Sally.

John winced.

Sally pulled her clothes out of the locker and began shrugging into them. John did the same, nose wrinkling as he pulled his shirts on, and that was why you went back to your locker and got fresh clothes before you hit the head, and seriously, Watson, _that’s_ the reason why you’re now thinking it was a bad idea to charge straight here after you got off CAP?

At any other time, the locker rooms might be filled with any number of naked people, and John had long since gotten over any kind of shyness, but putting on his clothes next to Sally, who was refusing to look at him, while Sherlock, also refusing to look to look at him, stripped out of his, had to be the single most awkward situation he’d been in since … maybe ever.

He half considered carrying his flight suit rather than putting it back on again, but then realized he didn’t have shoes, and if he was going to put his jockey boots on he might as well suit up. Sally apparently made the same calculation.

Sherlock, completely nude now, placed his boots and socks on the shelf below his neatly folded coveralls and walked towards the towel racks.

John grabbed his helmet out of the locker and tucked it under his arm. “Look,” he began again, and Sherlock turned his cool, pale eyes on him. “I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s fine.” Sherlock said, snatching a towel from the rack. He threw it over his shoulder rather than wrapping it around his waist and turned and strode towards the showers.

Sally gathered her helmet under her arm. She brushed her braids back with her palm. He’d done his best to keep her hair out of the water, like she’d asked, but they had still gotten fuzzy from the humidity. “Just blowing off steam?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

She snorted.

He glanced towards the showers, and Sally took the hint and followed him out of the locker room. The gray metal corridors of the Galactica were still deserted, but he still kept his voice just above a whisper. “Look, Sally, it wasn’t just sex. I care about you. And I will always, always have your back. But what you said earlier … I’m the CAG, now. And we can’t … What if it had been someone else? A goodie-two-shoes like Carmichael? Or one of the jockeys?”

She folded her arms. “I get it, John. I said ‘we’re done,’ and I meant it.”

He felt a low twist in his belly. “I … look, that doesn’t mean …. If things were different ….”

“If the world hadn’t ended? If Bill hadn’t died? We can’t keep playing ‘what if,’ John.”

“I know. But I want you to know that I … wanted to.”

They reached the first of the flight crew’s duty lockers. Sally’s rack was here; John’s small room was further down. She met his gaze steadily, a new hardness in her expression he hadn’t seen there before.

“Stop wanting me, John Watson,” she told him, and slipped into the darkened locker.


	7. Episode 7: Six of One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock interrogates Irene and learns how the cylons tracked Galactica. He isolates synthetic compounds in Irene’s blood and comes up with a test which detects them. He begins testing the blood of key crew personnel--with unexpected results.

Sherlock shot a sidelong glance at Stamford. It wasn’t as though he could tell him to leave. But he also couldn’t control what Irene said. Her eyes had focused, but her pupils were still huge and glassy. She’d turned her head towards him and away from Stamford.

“What you said before, when you were--” high, seizing, prophesying. “‘The cities of Caprica are burning. Do you want to go out with a bang?’ Lieutenant Donovan claims to have seen you with Doctor Anderson in Caprica city. She said she saw you ‘ _with him_ with him.’”

Irene smirked. “You can be indelicate.”

“Fine. Were you frakking Phil Anderson during the nuclear attack on Caprica?”

“I was. And let me tell you, vaporizing at the point of orgasm is an experience you should have at least once in a lifetime.”

From his vantage behind Irene, Stamford tilted his head at Sherlock. He nodded slightly. There was no point in denying it now.

“Then how are you here?”

“The question you ought to be asking is, how do I remember that?”

“No. That’s obvious. Somehow you transferred the memories from one body to another. Basically some kind of wireless data connection.” He paused. “That’s how the suicides are connected to the attacks. Cylons die, kill themselves, and somehow that lets them report back to the basestars. Give them our coordinates. I want to know how you got onto the Olympic Carrier.”

“I already told your Commander. I boarded it in Boskirk with everyone else. I had a file full of evidence that Mycroft Holmes is a cylon agent, and I was bringing it to Admiral Gregson.”

He shook his head. “That can’t be. It was already en route to Picon when the attacks hit. If cylons had the ability to communicate telepathically, you could do it without all the suicides, which is what allowed us to figure out you were hiding in the fleet in the first place. So if you have to die to share the memories, it must mean that you can only share them in a disembodied state. Which means that you were not alive for some period of time after the attacks on Caprica. Which means that you managed to sneak aboard the Olympic carrier _after_ the fall.”

“Are you sure about that, Mr. Holmes? How do you know that when we die we don’t transmit some kind of signal intelligible to all cylons?”

He frowned. It was a possibility, though he couldn’t understand why the cylons would be programed to only have that kind of ability upon death, unless it functioned as a kind of distress call. “Is that what the device I found in your suitcase is? Does it allow you to intercept transmissions from other cylons?”

She raised her eyebrows. “You mean the transponder? No, that’s my protection.”

“Protection?”

“From friendly fire. It identifies me as a cylon to the raiders. It’s why they didn’t attack the Galactica.”

He felt his eyes widening fractionally before he managed to control his expression. If that were true, then they still had the device’s protection.

“That won’t work again, I’m afraid. They’ll reprogram the raiders to ignore it, or else tighten the range.”

He sighed. It had been too much to hope for.

“You might as well jettison it out the airlock,” mused Irene. “Like the Commander said.”

Suddenly, Sherlock wondered if the device might still be useful, after all.

 

* * *

 

 

“So the cylons transmit some kind of signal when they die?” Greg’s eyes felt like they were caked in sand. He’d managed to get in an hour’s catnap since the battle, but while most of the flight crew and civilians were getting rack time, the engineering bay was still busy repairing the damages they’d sustained, and he and Dimmock were taking turns overseeing them. He half expected to see the cylons jump down on them any second, but so far, it seemed that they’d lost their tail. He’d been in his quarters reviewing the damage reports when Sherlock had come to see them.

 “That’s what she said.”

He raised his eyebrows. “And you believe her?”

“I don’t, actually. If they had the technology to broadcast a signal across space like that, why would the build it so that they could only use it when they died? I think that when cylons die that their memories are transferred from one body to another. There was a pattern. Suicide, attack, suicide, attack. It’s the only explanation fits all the facts.”

“And how did they know our coordinates?”

“They’re basically living computers. I assume they have some way of sensing their location. Probably they use quasars to triangulate their position, the way the DRADIS does.”

Greg frowned. If it really was that simple, then they were still in grave danger. “If they’re able to do this at will, why not do it again?”

“I’m assuming they will, as soon as they repair the FTL drive on that basestar.”

He leaned back in his chair. “We have no idea how many cylon agents are among us. If there are a lot of them, they could wear us down again and kill us all before we root them out.”

“Which is why I recommend releasing the photos of the cylons we’ve identified to the fleet. If they know we’re on to them, perhaps they won’t risk more suicide attacks, for fear of blowing the cover of their remaining models.”

“I said before I don’t want to do that until we have a working cylon detector.” Though Sherlock did have a point, and he might need to.

Sherlock tugged at his curls. “I’m close. I think I’ve come up with a way to isolate any synthetic molecules in cylon tissue. But I’ll need access to some of Galactica’s munitions and a competent technician to help disassemble them.”

“Whatever you need,” said Greg.

“A nuclear warhead--well, technically, I only need a small quantity of the plutonium inside the fissile pit, but it will necessitate disarming the device in order to get to it. The cylons seem to have a unique susceptibility to radiation--my understanding is that Bill Wiggins, the cylon aboard the Baker, exhibited all the signs of radiation sickness despite the ship’s radiation shields being intact.”

The headache behind Greg’s eyes had two children which took over each of his temples. “You want to dismantle a nuclear warhead inside this ship?”

“I can’t think of another source of plutonium apart from our FTL drive, which I’m assuming you want to leave intact.”

“I’m not giving you access to the arsenal until you’ve checked with Doctor Stamford and verified that you can’t use x-rays or something else first.”

Sherlock frowned. “I already tried x-rays. Although ….” he steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. “I’ve been thinking of Galactica’s medical bay as a trauma center. Do you know if Stamford has the equipment to treat cancers? A linear accelerator, perhaps?”

“Diagnostics, yes. Treatment, no. We usually would transfer a patient planetside to get treatment for something like that.

Sherlock cocked his head expectantly.

Lestrade sighed. “Talk to Chief Hooper. I’ll approve it if--and only if--she believes the plutonium can be extracted from a warhead safely and is willing to perform the extraction for you. And do it inside a Raptor you’ve jumped a safe distance from the fleet’s coordinates.”

“Thank you … sir,” said Sherlock. “This will work. You won’t regret it.”

Lestrade smiled despite himself. “Don’t blow yourselves up.”

 

* * *

 

The duty locker was dark except for a strip of lights around the baseboard marking the way to the door, but Sally had the layout of the room memorized and could navigate mostly by feel. She stripped out of her flight suit and piled her boots, suit and helmet into her locker, then changed into fresh underwear.

“Copperhead?” asked Racetrack, in the bottom rack below Sally’s. She’d pulled the curtains around her rack closed, but they didn’t do anything to dampen noises or provide real privacy.

She finished pulling her undershirt in place. “Yeah?”

“That was brilliant flying out there. You and Doc, taking out that basestar, landing on the flight deck while the doors were closing on your asses.”

“I lost my frakking wingman,” she snapped. Which apparently hadn’t dampened her spirits enough to stop her from frakking John in the showers.

For a moment, Racetrack was silent. “Crashdown was my friend, too, you know.”

“Sorry. I’m still hyped up on stims. Don’t listen to me.”

“Same. Maybe that’s why I can’t feel sad. I mean, I liked Crashdown. He was a good guy. I took the photo of him with his girlfriend back on Virgon out of his locker and put it on the memorial wall. She’s probably dead now, too. Maybe it’s better that they’re together.”

“Maybe.” Sally closed her locker, careful not to slam the door, and climbed the ladder over Racetrack’s rack and into her own. Sally realized she hadn’t known much about Crashdown, apart from that he was a competent but not stellar viper pilot, couldn’t hold his liquor, and didn’t play triad. Hadn’t played triad. Frak. It was going to take some getting used to, referring to almost everyone in the past tense.

Sally didn’t know what Crashdown’s girlfriend’s name had been, or if he’d wanted to join her in Elysium. She fingered her engagement ring, which she still wore on the chain with her dog tags. She’d been devastated after Bill had died, had spent days lying in bed, leaving John to deal with most of the funeral arrangements (such as they had been with no body to bury), but she hadn’t ever wanted to follow him. Maybe because she couldn’t shake the feeling that Bill was somehow still alive out there, in deep space, waiting for her. Which was bullshit. A pilot’s jock smock gave you eight hours of air. Bill had suffocated alone in the darkness.

And after he’d died, nothing had ever really been right for her again. Or for her and John, for that matter. John clearly blamed himself for Bill’s death, and she understood that--he’d been lead pilot on that training mission and Bill had been his wingman. She should probably feel guiltier for Crashdown than she actually did. But Bill’s death hadn’t all been on John. Sally had been his flight instructor, had pinned his wings on him, and then six months later he’d died in a frakking training accident?

She’d thought that she’d been fair. Objective. But there was a reason that they’d had to keep their relationship a secret until after he’d passed his flight exams. She shouldn’t have been dating Bill while she was his instructor. But she’d wanted him, and she’d done it anyway. And then she’d fallen in love with him, and maybe she’d passed him when she shouldn’t have.

And she’d almost done the exact same thing with John--or the reverse, she supposed. He was her CAG. He was supposed to lead her in battle, order her into danger, potentially sacrifice her life if he thought it was necessary. There was no way he could make those decisions impartially about someone he was frakking.

Unless he could. If it hadn’t really meant anything to him. If he’d just been ‘blowing off steam,’ like he’d told Holmes. Her cheeks burned with remembered humiliation. Holmes’ disgust when he’d walked in on John fingering her against the sink, and John’s own panicked expression, looking for all the world like he wasn’t just embarrassed that they’d been caught but that he hadn’t wanted Holmes in particular to see them together. Like he was apologizing to him for her. Like she’d never been who he really wanted.

She clenched her eyes shut. Stim withdrawal was giving her a stabbing headache. Whatever she and John had or hadn’t meant to each other, it needed to be over. Why should she care who John Watson frakked as long as it wasn’t one of his subordinates? Still, she’d prefer it be anyone but the freak. There was something wrong with him. Him and his brother both, if she was honest.

Sally clutched the ring to her chest. “Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer,” she said. “Please guide your servant Jordan ‘Crashdown’ Gaeric to Elysium and reunite him with his loved ones. He gave his life willingly for us, and we honor him for that. Help us to make our own lives worthy of that gift.” _And also, look after the soul of Bill Murray, and help me to be worthy of his love and do justice to his memory._

“So say we all,” murmured Racetrack.

Sally released her ring and rolled onto her side. “Try to get some sleep.”

 

* * *

 

Sherlock had made the output of the test results so clear that any idiot could read them. An indicator light flashed green for human, red for cylon. He'd used Irene's blood as the baseline for cylon, and bagged human blood from sickbay as the control. But the testing device was delicate--an intricate matrix of carbon nanotubes containing microscopic amounts of plutonium that preferentially ionized synthetic molecules. The sample had to be fed into the tiny matrix at an infinitesimal rate; it took nearly eleven hours before the blood sample had ionized sufficiently and the synthetic molecules would become detectable. This not only meant that it would take approximately _sixty years_ to test everyone in the fleet (assuming he could find any competent chemists among the civilian fleet to run the tests continuously, which was far from a given), but also that Sherlock still had to wait for hours for his own second test results. Because his test was red. And that was impossible.

He had to have contaminated the sample, somehow, and so he’d had to sterilize the matrix and start again. Because he could not turn the device over to Lestrade if it was returning false-positives. People would live and die by these test results. He chewed his fingernail and watched the progress bar on his computer screen. Three hours and 37 seconds remaining. He stormed towards the brig.

 

Irene sat up straighter when he entered her cell. “So, how’s your cylon detector working?”

They’d reinforced the bars with heavy duty hardware cloth after she’d reached through them and broken a marine’s arm--and shot three others after stealing his sidearm before they’d tased her again. It really did seem that cylons were more sensitive to electricity than humans, much like to radiation. Her hands were manacled in front of her, now, in titanium cuffs connected by a length of steel cable to a hard seal collar, which normally served to make sure no air escaped a pilot’s helmet, but in Irene’s case served to make sure she didn’t escape her restraints. The device had been locked to the metal frame of her bed, which had in turn been bolted to the floor.

Sherlock took up a place a few feet away from her. “I’m still working out the kinks.”

“Are you?” Irene smiled archly. Her features were softer without makeup, but her gray eyes were still sharp as knives now that the glaze of drugs had worn off, and the curve of her smile wicked.

“I’m here for another blood sample, actually.”

Irene extended her cuffed wrists, rotating them to expose the veins on the inside of her elbows (and enhance her cleavage, which showed above her gray prisoners’ tank top). She let her lips part slightly. “Take whatever you want.”

Sherlock resolutely ignored her sexual aggression, reaching into his coat pocket for the syringe and tourniquet. He tied it above her left elbow and tapped the vein, then inserted the needle cleanly.

“Someone’s had practice,” Irene purred.

He pulled the plunger back, slowly filling the syringe with a fluid indistinguishable from human blood. From his own blood.

“You know what I think,” mused Irene, watching as he withdrew the full syringe and pressed a cotton ball to her vein, covering the wound with tape. “I think your cylon detector is working just fine.”

He ignored her.

“It’s got to be frightening. You’ve spent your whole life--well, what you thought was your whole life, relying on that brain of yours. And now you have no idea if anything you remember is real.” She gripped his forearm, hard enough to bruise even through his coat. “Your instinct will be to go to your brother for answers. Don’t. He knows the truth but will tell you nothing but lies. I can help you.”

He pulled his arm back.  “I very much doubt it.”

She shrugged, tossing her loose waves of hair over her white collarbones. “Suit yourself.”

He pocketed the syringe and turned away, making his way toward the barred door.

“Be careful with Captain Watson!” she called after him.

He stopped in his tracks, but didn’t turn around.

“I know what men want. It’s what my model was built for. You want him. And he wants you, you’re just too dense to see it.”

He turned around, but refused to respond.

“If you let him frak you, make sure you’re on your back.”

He balled his gloved fists in fury. Of course whatever advice she’d give him was bollocks. He’d been an idiot to imagine it would be anything else. He whirled on his heel and strode through the short corridor separating the cell from the exterior of the brig.

“On your back, Sherlock Holmes!” she shouted.

He yanked the door open, startling the marines who stood on either side, and slammed it shut behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> Updates on Thursdays


End file.
